Prime Minister:
It's a great pleasure this morning to be here with Sir
Peter Blake's son, James, to announce an exciting
new initiative that brings together the Sir Peter Blake
Trust and Antarctica New Zealand.
The partnership, which is to be called the Antarctic
Youth Ambassador programme, has been set up to provide young New
Zealanders with an amazing opportunity to be involved with a range
of environmental projects undertaken by Antarctica New
Zealand.
In many ways the relationship between the Sir Peter
Blake Trust and Antarctica New Zealand is a very natural one. Sir
Peter was, of course, a great expeditioner who had an immense
passion for Antarctica. In 2001, Sir Peter led an expedition to the
Antarctic Peninsula, where he traveled further south than any
sailing vessel before him. At that time Sir Peter had been
appointed as a special envoy of the United Nations Environment
Programme and took on a role as an ambassador for the Antarctic
environment.
Sir Peter also strongly identified and admired the
early Antarctic explorers such as Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest
Shackleton, and had great respect for Sir Edmund Hillary, who
pioneered New Zealand's permanent presence in Antarctica at Scott
Base.
Since Sir Edmund established Scott Base 50 years
ago, the New Zealand Antarctic Programme has established a
leadership role in Antarctic environmental management, and today a
principal aim of the programme is to ensure that the continent
remains as a natural reserve devoted to peace and
science.
Therefore I believe it is fitting that, in Sir
Peter's honour, the two organisations have sought to provide
opportunities for young New Zealanders to further his Antarctic
passion and his love of the natural environment, and to contribute
to managing and preserving this amazing
continent.
So I am delighted to launch the Antarctic Youth
Ambassador scheme. I'm sure that those who benefit from it will
have an experience that they will never forget.
James Blake's response:
It's a great thrill for me to be here with the Prime
Minister, Helen Clark, to help launch the Antarctic Youth
Ambassador scheme in Dad's honour. Dad talked a lot about
Antarctica and how important it is to the whole
world.
When he was sailing in Antarctica in 2001, Dad wrote
in his journal: "Antarctica is vital to our environment. This is
not just a land of ice and snow. This continent regulates weather
patterns, climates, ocean currents, and many other vital factors
that are imperative for our future good health. The more that
people understand what fits where and why, the better off we will
all be. The more that everyone learns to appreciate the environment
in all its forms the better off our children, and their children,
will be."
I feel really fortunate to have been given the
opportunity to see all this at first hand. It's a real honour to be
able to launch this new scheme that will give others my age the
chance to experience the Antarctic environment for themselves, to
help manage and preserve it, and to pass on their experience to
others.