I’ve been working on producing resources – audio CD and booklet – for this children’s music workshop over the past few weeks. It actually originated over 30 years ago as an excuse for kids to bang drums, dress up in colourful costumes and wave shields and spears about. At that time it consisted of just one rather repetitive song but which had the virtue of easy adaptation. Over the years, in a variety of mostly school situations, it has been developed and a number of songs added. However, for some unknown reason I never got around to recording it, until now. The reason why is I’ve been asked to run a children’s music workshop in August and suggested this.  I decided to drop the environmental storyline that has the villagers chopping down trees and going to war with their neighbours, even though it’s probably closer to reality – though I may well discuss this angle with the kids (they can include it if they like).

In fact, I saw the recent BBC Panorama programme about illegal logging – not only in Africa of course – and was appalled. The systematic destruction of the natural environment, often aligned with bribery and corruption, is destroying so much of our world and it seems to be getting worse despite the best efforts of many campaigners. Even without climate change this remorseless plundering of the world’s resources on both land and sea is not only bad news for us but also many animal species which are either endangered or made extinct. It’s a huge and complex topic, of course, but one that we, young and old, should try and find out about and, where necessary, take action (avoiding certain products, for example, or lobbying politicians and companies). Will such efforts make any difference? Who knows, but better to try than just let the buggers continue to get away with it.