The Earth Vision Nature Writing Contest is a Creative Writing competition with a difference. It asks contestants firstly, to define their vision for the Earth of the future and secondly, to do so with a focus on the natural world. These are not add-ons, side-issues. These are the primary foci.

However good, sometimes great, the writing, if the subject matter does not address the centrality of the Earth Vision Nature theme, it misses its target for this competition. Vision is about the future. Positive vision raises hopes and energies. As adults, it is all too easy to lose sight of the miracle of the existence of all life. Too much swamps this key perception. In factoring out the miraculous we do ourselves a huge disservice.

In my life I've had the privilege of judging many Creative Writing Competitions. The Earth Vision Nature Writing Contest is the one closest to my own heart. I believe our connection to nature, our deep root into life, is strengthened whenever we turn our thoughts, hearts, minds and ultimately pens and p.c.'s, to this primal relationship we all share with our planet.

Writing is often referred to as a journey; a journey where the travelling - the process of writing - is quite as important as the arrival - the goal. This may shake out as 'Am I writing for myself? Is this my process?' Or 'Am I writing for an audience, and wish to touch a universal chord?'

Judging the 2010 Earth Vision Nature Writing Contest was an education for me, in terms of contestants' startpoints and orientation. The fact-to-fantasy, poem-to-polemic ranges I anticipated, but the close focus on the historical-up-to-the-present came as a surprise, considering the second word in this competition is vision. No matter how superb the writing, the first job is to fulfil the brief. To put it bluntly, this competition is not about focusing on the harm we are currently doing to ourselves and the planet, yet that is the place many writers gravitate towards as a first port of call. Understandably so.

If a writer wishes to connect with a readership, the challenge is to find ways to turn the personal into the universal. This involves transforming the particulars of an individual life - the whole gamut of experience - into a universal language headed up by nature. But this is not our everyday language. My Vision is that one day we will collectively prefer and champion a nature-based language and all the patterns of understanding it so freely offers, because of its immediate accord and resonance with the real reality, not our human superimposed structures on the Earth.

When reading and rereading the entries for the 2010 Earth Vision Nature Writing Contest, my heart went out to many. I'm coming to believe that to transform pain, depression, despair into a deepened hope and vision is a major task for us all who care about the Earth. The entries to the 2010 Earth Vision Nature Writing Competition, to me, mark stages on an individual's journey which I hope every one of the contestants will continue to explore. So they too grow and nurture the best of their seed-ideas.

The place where Nature and Human Vision come together fires a collective energy. The many, many places where Nature and Human Vision align offers a route to our shared empowerment for the future and the future's children. Naturally, that includes all species, and never forgets their prime carer - the Earth itself.