Having just read “Trout Bohemia” and “The Trout Diaries”, I have fallen in love with a man I have never met and with a name I cannot pronounce.

I know very little about Grzelewski other than that he lives somewhere on the banks of the Clutha and he writes superbly.

His descriptions of the little known New Zealand rivers and landscape shows a deep understanding of the importance of nature and the incredible and underestimated value of our natural resources.

In this modern world of convenience we have become increasingly distanced from the natural world and as a result we forget that we are utterly dependent on all the things nature kindly provides.

These two books are wonderful reminders of what we take for granted and how incredibly valuable our waterways are. Lets make sure we pay due attention to them and protect them with our lives!

We cannot return trout to the local streams of our urban areas yet, but we can stop this endless degradation of our urban areas. By bringing nature back to the cities we can ensure that future generations develop a love of nature that hopefully will safeguard our natural heritage well into the future.

I urge everyone to embrace the idea of urban intensification so that we can limit the impact on our valuable rural resources. With great design, we can create great cities. We can grow up and green up simultaneously.

We have the technology and solutions to green up urban environments and create corridors of flowers and vegetation. Vertical gardens not only improve the look of urban areas, but quietly remove toxins from the environment, clean up the water quality, reduce urban temperatures and provide much needed habitats for our biodiversity. We can lead the world in this area, we will just have to leave the trout to the backwaters for now.