The Plans

As you may have noticed on the post before this, there was a large clearing by the bay on the island, and that is where we plan to build our civilisation. There is a whole list of things that we need on our island, and we have a plan.

Order of things we need to do:

1) We require boats to get to the island

2) We need a dock or port for our boating needs

3) We must to establish our vegetable gardens and livestock

4) We need to get the clearing ready to be built on and get the materials.

5) We must build our Town Hall, for a meeting place and an operations centre

6) Build the housing

7) Establish all our businesses and trades, plus the classroom and recreational ground (rec ground)

8) Let our community flourish and grow

I shall soon post our building needs, and describe our all of our plans in more detail, plus provide a map of all the additions to our community. Here is a close-up of the clearing as it is now, and I shall update it every time something happens or is built:

To the right is the sea, and the stream feeding into it, at the top is the deep forest, the bottom is the light woodland, and to the left is the river. I hope to publish my plans soon, but there is only so much you can do in a day.

Matai Islands Map

There are four (non-existent) islands in the Matai Islands, and we are pretending that we are going to inhabit one of them (Three other classes are going to have the other ones). Our island has a bay facing the North Island, and our settlement will be near the bay. I drew a picture of the island, and I will be posting the updated version every time we (supposedly) build a new bit. Here is the image (Click on it for enlargement):

It is 45 by 22 kilometres, which makes it 9902 kilometres. There is a key to go with it:

Orange: Beaches.

Light Green: Light Woodland.

Dark Green: Thick Forest.

Blue: Water.

Purple: Higher Ground e.g. a mountain or large hill.

Our island has some Uranium deposits and also limestone.

The other islands all contain different materials

One of them has Oil and Diamonds,

Another one has Natural Gas and Ironsand,

And the last one has Coal and Gold.

The other three islands contain more valuable materials, which is good because then we won't be digging up our island and ruining it's ecosystem.

We have a plan for what we need and are going to put on our island, but more about that later.

Matai Island Jobs

Here is a list of available jobs for the Matai Islands:
I am one of the Architect Designer-type people, in conjunction with my friend, Sprint Gas Racing.
There needs to be one or two people to farm our crops and tend to the livestock and chickens.
Also someone to provide the manpower (or womanpower) to build our community and earn their living as a builder.
We would, of course need an explorer so we could use the island to it's full potential.
And a navigator to help the explorer map the island.
Another person we need would be a technician to fix all our technical problems.
A Boatman or two would be needed for getting across to the mainland and taking care of the boats.
The position of Mayor would have to be debated over,
And a City Council would be an addition to another job, a night job perhaps.
Electricians would be required to install and maintain all our technology.
I would also like to be a Politician, and debate treaties and stuff with the other islands over resources and political stuff.
That's about all the jobs I can name right now, but I'm sure that there's more needed. If you can think of any, please leave a note in comment form :).

Uranium

Uranium is a seroius business, as it sells for about US$44 dollars a pound, that's about NZ$78.75284 as of the current market. It requires strict rules and regulations, like the Australian's "Code of Practice and Safety Guide for Radiation Protection and Radioactive Waste Management in Mining and Mineral Processing" and the Canadian's "Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission". There is a lot of radioactivity in the business, and a no-nonsense crew is required. The process of extracting Uranium is long and tedoius, and probably not worth it at all on a smaller scale. To see the full process, click here or look at this picture:


LONG AND TEDIOUS!!!
This is not the way for our Matai Island!!!
I believe that we would be better off with the limestone and farming for a living.

Wikipedia's definition of "Sustainability"

Sustainability, in general terms, is the ability to maintain balance of a certain process or state in any system. It is now most frequently used in connection with biological and human systems. In an ecological context, sustainability can be defined as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future.
Sustainability has become a complex term that can be applied to almost every system on Earth, particularly the many different levels of biological organization, such as; wetlands, prairies and forests and is expressed in human organization concepts, such as; eco-municipalities, sustainable cities, and human activities and disciplines, such as; sustainable agriculture, sustainable architecture and renewable energy.
For humans to live sustainably, the Earth's resources must be used at a rate at which they can be replenished. However, there is now clear scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably, and that an unprecedented collective effort is needed to return human use of natural resources to within sustainable limits.
Since the 1980s, the idea of human sustainability has become increasingly associated with the integration of economic, social and environmental spheres. In 1989, the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) articulated what has now become a widely accepted definition of sustainability: "[to meet] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability

This is a blog for school work and my own environmental endeavors. This term (term two) we are studying sustainability, environmental sustainability, and (I think) the global-economy-type-social-studies-environment thing.
In case you were wondering, the Matai Islands are our class's (supposedly) non-existant land. We have to design ways to live on these four newly-discovered islands off the coast of Raglan (The west coast of the North Island, NZ). They are totally uninhabited and forested, with a mountain on two or three of them (I might try to upload a drawing of one of them some time). They all have either a river or a lake, and most of them have a highest vantage point, where you can see most of the island.
I hope to post a lot of interesting stuff, about all the aspects of sustainability, and a bunch of other stuff too.
SUSTAINABILITY