Editorial: Risks of our kids' adventures

Parents up and down the country are among the many moved this week by the tragedy unfolding off the Taranaki coast.

Two Spotswood College pupils, one an international student, are, at time of writing, missing after they fell off Paritutu Rock into the sea. An instructor who dived in to rescue them is also missing.

They were taking part in a rock-climbing expedition on Wednesday. Police, army and lifesaving staff and volunteers were yesterday conducting marine and coastline searches in what had sadly become a "body recovery" operation.

Only four years ago the country was reeling from another tragedy involving a school expedition. In 2008 a group from Elim Christian College in Auckland was canyoning the Mangatepopo Stream as part of a course run by the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre in the Tongariro National Park. Six students and a teacher were swept to their deaths in a flash flood.

Then and now, parents would be thinking, "That could be my child".

Every day we pack our kids off to school and trust that they will come home at the end of the day.

Only two months ago, on the cusp of the New Zealand winter, a group of Tauranga Intermediate pupils went missing in the bush during a school camp at Ngamuwahine Outdoor Education Lodge in the lower Kaimais.

Thankfully they were found eight hours later, but it was yet another blow to the psyches of anxious parents nationwide.

Accountability, on the part of schools and outdoor activity providers, is a huge issue here.

The key consideration is that they are dealing with two, at times, wildly unpredictable forces - nature and youth. There must be solid systems in place to react swiftly and decisively should disaster occur.

We don't want schools to stop exposing our kids to the great outdoors. Amazing experiences await them in our forests and on our mountains and coastlines. Going in an organised school group is, to be honest, the only way many of them will get to do these things.

We don't know yet exactly how things went wrong in Taranaki, but in a week in which volcanoes across our region have rumbled to life, we now, more than ever, are reminded of the importance of showing a healthy respect for Mother Nature.