Estudio descriptivo de características demográficas

For Thomas Dunlop, the issues New Zealand society were trying to collectively sort out, expressed politically in 1874, 1885 and 1903, and explored by Wynn (1977: 136), were not unique to New Zealand. Since the mid nineteenth century, natural science had been progressing steadily in understanding natural processes. The understanding of nature had moved from the cataloguing of plants and animals to understanding physical geography and climates. Processes of change, within plant and animal populations, were greatly influenced by the ideas of Charles Darwin. While the last decade of the

nineteenth century saw several facets of natural history and physiology come together, being the basis for later thinking on human evolution (McIntosh 1985: 27), it was not until the 1920s that ecology started to came together as a perspective (Dunlop 1999: 219).

According to Dunlop, New Zealand was too small a society in the late nineteenth century to have any meaningful scientific dialog, although this does not mean that there were not individuals who understood the issues. The ideas came from Europe and the United States, often as influential books or examples of policy and legislation. The ideas were accessible to educated people and all settler societies had museums, botanical gardens and natural history societies. It was the groups and communities involved in natural history, and the influence of this growing scientific knowledge on settlers that made conservation ideas more acceptable to the general population. (Dunlop 1999:15).

Initially, in very general terms, nineteenth century settlers sought to make the new lands much like the ones they had left. They introduced animals and birds, and while botanists collected New Zealand specimens for gardens back in England, new plants were

introduced to the colonies. Natural science back in England and Europe had not only an interest in new species of plants and animals, but were now interested in how the introduced species would adapt to the colonial environment (Dunlop 1999: 63).

The science of natural history in the mid nineteenth century could not predict how the indigenous flora and fauna would adapt or even survive the introduction of new species (Dunlop 1999: 85). There was an implicit acceptance that, just as the settler population would eventually replace the Maori population, exotic plants would probably supersede indigenous plants.

By the third quarter of the nineteenth century various aspects of the colony’s nature had started to be linked with national identity. While birds and animals became symbols (Star 2002: 22), protecting topographical features became important also (Dunlop 1999: 118), and this was very much reflected in the 1903 Scenery Protection Act. For Dunlop, settlers had direct experience of nature and built up an understanding of nature from this and folk-biology. People were open to new scientific ideas, but not in scientific terms, and needed to relate these ideas to their own experience and knowledge (Dunlop 1999: 140).

Summary

The thirty years to the end of the nineteenth century saw a huge change in population and expansion of settlement across the country, and economic fluctuations made life difficult for many immigrants.

The three main legislative Acts, the 1874 Forest Act, 1885 State Forests Act and 1903 Scenery Protection Act, were attempts to temper, or control the rate of depletion of native bush. The heated debate of 1874 Forest Act showed that creating farms and prosperity was more important than forest conservation. The 1885 State Forests Act protected land in a three tier system, but the tiers just aligned with the ruggedness and productivity of the land, so there was no real conflict between economic and

conservation uses. There was more of a concern that timber supplies would run out and the New Zealand bush was not seen as an ongoing source of timber because it took too long for the trees to mature. As a result, faster growing exotics were being considered.

By the time of the 1903 Scenery Protection Act, a number of different ideas had come together. The Act was passed without heated debate and politicians lamented that much of the destruction had already been done. The Scenery Protection Act came about 25 years too late for most of New Zealand’s lowland bush, although it seems the Act would not have preserved lowland bush covering potential farmland anyway. There was, and is, a conflict between private ownership and the public good in preserving forests. Once land was sold to farmers, it can be understood why the economic imperatives of farming might come before conservation ideals. The responsibility for preserving the bush can therefore be seen as residing with the provincial or central government who are not dependent of the immediate economic return of the land.

Conservation ideas were coming from Europe and the United States during this time, and the early theories behind ecology were being read by New Zealand intellectuals and a few politicians. Even acclimatisation societies were changing their views on the inevitable decline of indigenous flora and fauna. There was a compelling scientific logic to the idea that clearing the land would affect rainfall, increase floods and erosion and ultimately the reliability of obtaining fresh water. Cultural perceptions of the

environment changed to recognise that stripping the landscape of its cover would eventually affect the economic viability of the land, although principally in terms of erosion and floods rather than long term soil fertility.

As Dunlop concludes (1999: 140), scientific ideas only made sense when understood in terms closer to people’s own experiences and knowledge. More specifically, political ideas about protecting the native forests needed to align with people’s more direct perception of the environment. The environmental political concerns of the 1870s clashed with the male immigrant dominated society breaking in the land.

The historical interpretation of settler values clashing with European and United States wisdom creates an impression of large economic and social forces engaged in a type of struggle. These ideas seem to diminish the role of everyday people in how they viewed the landscape and engaged with it on a daily basis. By 1900, it must have been

reasonably obvious that little of the original bush remained near where people lived and worked.

The tourist industry had by that time elevated images of New Zealand’s scenic features and there appears to have been almost two New Zealand landscapes, the pastoral and the bush covered mountains.

The legislation and debates, and the ideas proposed for addressing the decline of native forests, could not have gained acceptance unless they reflected what people already knew and directly perceived.

By the turn of the twentieth century, New Zealand had changed from a settler society to a more complex society. Much of the legislation to improve working conditions, voting for woman and public health initiatives happened as the economy improved in the 1890s. Protecting the scenery had to wait until 1903, indicating that culturally the environment still had a lower importance than economic production and social

legislation. There is perhaps an interesting relationship between the fact that the largest percentage of bush was cleared during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, at a time when progressive social legislation was being put through.

In order to understand the cultural perceptions of the landscape, we need to use material that might show, in another form, the landscape people experienced. Paintings and photography give one such perspective that show not only what the landscape was like, but how it was interpreted.