SIMULACION DEL CONTROLADOR DSMC

The previous section explored the consequences of Cronon’s myth of wilderness on the conservation estate and the current understanding of wilderness. This section focuses on the implications of this ambivalence on people’s own position in relation to wilderness and the conservation estate.

As noted the division wilderness constructs between nature and culture results in a conceptualisation of wilderness as uninhabited on the one hand and people as visitors and outsiders on the other. Similarly wilderness exists, whether in Apse’s images, Shultis’ surveys, or Logan’s sentiments as timeless (without history) untouched (without civilisation) remote (far from civilisation) and so on. Wilderness is separate to the culture that constructs it. And consequently only from a position of other places being habitable, civilised and nearby can the notion of an uninhabitable wilderness be maintained. And further, because such qualities – while being the cultural basis by which wilderness is sustained – are themselves outside wilderness, and as a result their role in constructing wilderness is concealed from all but the most reflective of considerations.

In this regard (and as already discussed in the previous chapter) it is clear that the paths, boardwalks and bridges shown in the series of images in Figure 4.1g, despite enabling travel through wilderness, are themselves not part of that wilderness. Instead they are the facilities by which an experience of wilderness is accessed rather than produced. Likewise the cookers, tents and clothing which aid people’s travel in the conservation estate have a similar

function – being solutions to assist people’s travel through the wilderness, but again not themselves an integral part of wilderness.

Hence inherent in the wilderness idea is an indifference to the activities of people – that provided impacts are appropriately mitigated or minimised then the specific tasks undertaken are of little consequence.

For example as long as a tent leaves the forest undisturbed, it matters little where the tent is made, what it is made of, who made it, or what specific functions it has. This is because the tent is a tool by which wilderness as both an experience and a place might be afforded but in itself is not part of wilderness. The same applies to the boardwalk that attempts to leave the surrounding fauna untouched.

In other words the manner in which people act has little consequence

provided no identifiable marks are left. This is because people’s activities are not part of wilderness’ ideation but remain external to it. Hence provided the conservation estate appears undisturbed whether from the boardwalk, helicopter flight or roadend it doesn’t matter whether it is structured as a theme-park, biodiversity reserve, or site of natural quiet, provided that when people leave little or no tangible sense of their having been there can be perceived.

This is significant for a number of reasons. First, it sets up a relationship in which little is expected from the conservation estate in terms of directing how activities are undertaken. For example the standard for a backcountry track is not to be determined by the particular and intimate characteristics of a specific stretch of forest. Instead a track is made and evaluated according to its compliance with a universal standard of gradient ratios, acceptable mud depth, step height and the like.32 _{Consequently the track standard for ‘back-}

country visitors’ makes no distinction between terrains as diverse as the steep glacially formed pass found in Northern Fiordland, the always eroding scree slopes of Canterbury, the headlands of Abel Tasman National Park or the boggy nature of the South Island’s South Coast.

Similarly huts, bridges and boardwalks are of pre-determined designs that require a site to be modified to fit the generic solution rather than the reverse.

Figures 4.1g-7 and 4.1g-8 of the Beans Burn Bridge are salient examples of this. So too is the approach for way-finding and signage. Here the requirement is for all track markers throughout the conservation estate to be of the same colour and dimension33 _{and for signs to fit a standard format and}

comply with fixed instructions for the placement of the department’s corporate identity34 _{– rules which are derived from current branding best practice that is}

more akin to fast food restaurant chains and computer manufacturers than the particular characteristics of a specific location in the conservation estate. And in this regard even the term ‘conservation estate’ (which pervades this dissertation) is also a conflation of many different locales, ecologies, scales and histories.35

This ambivalence of the particularities of place also makes people less diverse. As previously noted, the ROS homogenises multiple motivations, activities and durations into seven discrete typologies of visitor. By being a top-down rather than a bottom-up approach it constrains a consideration of what might be rich and complex cultural relationships with specific locales in the conservation estate. Instead people and the conservation estate are organised into a universalising matrix of seven visitor categories and six broad setting types. Its effect is to subdivide the conservation estate into non-intersecting zones that use techniques similar to the surveyor and are based on pre-determined categories of land-use and visitor. Hence the departmental manual notes when mapping locations each areas must not include gaps, grey areas or overlaps.36

Second this simplification of people’s place in wilderness has led to a conceptualisation of wilderness that in itself is less particular and more generic. For example while this dissertation began with descriptions of the Fiordland wilderness the same language of being rugged, unspoilt, remote, timeless and a sanctuary can be found in descriptions of many parts of the conservation estate. Indeed rather than asserting that Fiordland’s Stillwater Valley is particularly unspoilt, remote and timeless, one can justifiably argue

33 Standards New Zealand., 2004, Tracks and outdoor visitor structures, p79-80

34 Department of Conservation, 1994, Sign Standard. Colquhoun and Department of Conservation, 2007, Visitor Information Guideline and Standard.

35 For example the conservation estate was formed out of a diverse number of landholdings with diverse purposes by New Zealand Forest Service, Department of Lands and Survey, and the Department of Internal Affairs. See Young, 2004, Our islands, our selves : a history of conservation in New Zealand.

36 See Taylor, New Zealand. Hillary Commission for Recreation and Sport and New Zealand. Department of Conservation., 1993, The New Zealand recreation opportunity spectrum : guidelines for users, p35-38 and Figure 17.

that the entire conservation estate should be considered as such. In this sense the dialogue between the meaning of wilderness and specific places becomes one way. As a result attributes of wilderness are fixed to places, but the particular attributes of those locales – or the specific activities taking place there – are unable to establish diverse meanings of wilderness. Instead most places in the conservation estate are disciplined within an overarching and singular rhetoric of wilderness and visiting.

This lack of particularity also supports an illusion in which changing temporal qualities are also elided. By being timeless the conservation estate refutes history. For example Figure 4.2a is an image of Big River that I took on the second of my three trips there.

Fig 4.2a “After torrential spring rains, Big River in southwest Fiordland changed its course and cut a new channel through the lowland forest”.37

Each journey has seen my understanding of this region and also my place in it change. With each successive trip it has seemed less fierce, less unexplored, less remote and also less challenging. The accumulation of activities there has contributed to its qualities as a wilderness of ‘otherness’ diminishing. However with the loss of these qualities – as it has become less novel and more comfortable – has come the addition of others. It is now more distinct and distinguishable from other places in Fiordland. The rock ledge that provides access along Lake Hakapoua’s eastern coast is also now familiar: the guide

book description that gave me both some concerns for safety and also a suggestion of being spectacular do not now seem apt. It certainly seems less untouched as I have become more aware of the traces made by both mine and other’s journeys there. Also subsequent study has revealed even more ways in which this area has been travelled through, lived in and worked since people first come to the region. While images of this locale emphasise its nature- based qualities – for example “the 45,000 hectare Waitutu Forest west of Hump Ridge … is one of the largest tracts of unmodified lowland forest left in New Zealand and is of outstanding conservation significance for its unique sequence of marine terraces, superb podocarp forest and diversity of threatened species”38 _{– left out is a record of sheep farming, bridge building,}

track making, surveying, forestry, prospecting, hydro development assessment, tourism operations and so on.39 _{What then of it as a wilderness should a more}

nuanced social commentary pursued here? Rather than being ‘unvisited’ and ‘untouched’ what manner of wilderness could be constructed here?

However the typical way in which such places are described – for example in guide books and on topographical maps – tends to deaden any differences. Rivers, regardless of location, tend to be described as providing ‘good’, ‘better’, or ‘difficult’ travel on either the ‘true left’ or ‘true right’.40

Generalisations abound. For example the “wide, flat valley floors in Fiordland tend to be swampy. The best travel is often on the levees forming the riverbank”.41 _{Likewise identifying a route on a topographical map forces and}

understanding of terrain built on the relative densities of a map’s contour lines and not the particularities of place.

Nor does the equipment used to travel in these places make any distinction of place. The freestanding tent, the standard boardwalk design, the same hut specification, the same toilet, can be installed anywhere with almost identical

38 Apse and Dennis, 1997, South-west New Zealand World Heritage Area = Te Wahipounamu, p118.

39 See for example, the field books used by C. Ottway during his survey work for the Southland Survey Office and held by Land Information New Zealand, Dunedin branch. See also unpublished film footage shot in the district by the owners (and shown to the author by family members) of the local movie theatre reveal a more active engagement of the region. This includes images of the road being built to Lake Hauroko. For some of the activities that have been part of this region see also: Bird, 1998, Viaducts against the sky : the story of Port Craig. ; Bremer, 1983, Port Craig and Waitutu Forest, 1925 and 1983. ; McMechan, 1997, Timber town : a history of Port Craig : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of BA (Hons) at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. ; Watt, 1971, Port Preservation. Kirby similarly notes the ‘social and cultural values’ in this region are left unrecognised. See Kirby, 1996, Interrogating narratives of heritage in place.

40 This is defined as “true-left is the left-hand side of the river when viewed looking down stream. True-right is thus the right-hand side of the river, looking down stream”. McNeill, 2007, Moir's guide south : the great southern lakes and fiords, south from the Hollyford, p22.

outcomes. The ideas and technologies used to negotiate wilderness renders places similar: uniqueness is lost. To this end wilderness in its experience and ideation is reduced to the already prefigured and with it a tendency to construct wilderness and the conservation estate as a commodity.

In such homogeneity comes a disposition to differentiate place on quantitative attributes. Hence Fiordland is described as having the tallest waterfall, the sheerest cliffs, the deepest lakes and because of its highest rainfall the lushest rain forest. Similarly various adventures undertaken there scale the tallest, longest, fastest, most difficult and as yet unclimbed features and elements.

Certainly a sense of involvement greater than this is suggested in the General

Policy For National Parks which the New Zealand Conservation Authority

produces and which Department of Conservation is mandated to deliver.42 _The

New Zealand Conservation Authority policy does not use the term visitor.43

Instead, in its preamble to the section covering ‘Benefit, Use and Enjoyment of the Public’, it states: “New Zealand’s national parks have unique and historical and cultural characteristics which are cherished by New Zealanders and contribute to their sense of home and what it means to be a New Zealander.”44

Yet while the policy, by supporting the “traditional New Zealand backcountry experience with its ethos of self-reliance”,45 _{suggests a greater sense of}

belonging it struggles to envision what the qualities of participation within the conservation estate could become. Indeed a pressing but rarely considered question is how could the conservation estate be an integral part of looking forward as much as a ‘preserved’ remnant of what has passed? In other words a place where not only people, but also wilderness is re-created and revitalised in a process of mutual recreation and restoration. And where, as

42 “The New Zealand Conservation Authority's role is to advise the Minister of Conservation and the Director-General of Conservation. It is closely involved in conservation planning and policy development affecting the management of public conservation areas administered by the Department of Conservation as it approves the statutory strategies and plans which set objectives for their management… It is consulted by the Department of Conservation in the formulation of policies and plans and at the beginning of its annual business planning cycle”. Department of Conservation, 2008, New Zealand Conservation Authority (NZCA).

43 However it should be noted that in this document twice the term ‘visitor centre’ is used to describe a facility. Tourism is not defined according to the attributes of the person but rather the activity undertaken. Hence tourism occurs, and a concession to operate required, when an “individual or a group is undertaking the activity for specific gain or reward”. New Zealand Conservation Authority., New Zealand. Department of Conservation. and New Zealand. National Parks and Reserves Authority., 2005, General policy for national parks, p46.

44 Ibid, p37. 45 Ibid, p38.

Park suggests, the land becomes an ‘interconnected ecology to which people belong, rather than it belonging to them’.46

Nonetheless on returning to the question that began this chapter it can again be asked what is problematic with national standards and guidelines that deliver consistent levels of way-finding, facilities, paths, equipment, guiding and management? Especially if ecological values are preserved and consistent experiential qualities of wilderness are sustained.47 _{Yet it is the orientation of}

the question that is problematic. For the critical issue is not what does this type of approach enable but rather what does this singular understanding of wilderness and the resultant relationship with the conservation estate

preclude?

For in a universalising application of wilderness to the conservation estate, and a resulting loss of particularity, comes a lessening of the potential to learn

from the conservation estate. By homogenising the role of people, and similarly the way in which their engagements are organised, impedes the capacity of particular places – and the agency of landscape that Corner identifies – to shape people.48 _{As already noted this leads to a conversation}

that is only in one direction. And as a result there is a loss of opportunity to learn and progress what could be a more sustainable, resourceful, local and potentially indigenous participation with the ecologies, landforms and histories that are endemic and unique to this country. How might engaging with, rather setting apart, the particular and variable attributes that position this country in the south of the South Pacific locate more strongly all its people

as belonging here? It is this sentiment that lies at the heart of noted

adventurer Graeme Dingle call for all of New Zealand – from its most urban to its most remote areas – to be considered a national park.49

46 Park, 2006, Theatre country : essays on landscape & whenua, p100.

47 During various conversations with members of the Department of Conservation, and also members of groups that are active in the conservation estate, this position is often put forward.

48 These similarities aren’t just expressed across the New Zealand conservation estate. As Shultis notes “the composite wilderness image … was strikingly similar to the wilderness images derived from other samples which may reflect the existence of a common conception of wilderness throughout a number of western countries”. Shultis, 2001, The duality of wilderness: Comparing popular and political conceptions of wilderness in New Zealand, p70.

49 Dingle, 2006, Keynote Lecture. See also Woolley, 2002, Negotiating margins, reclaiming peripheries-the ‘wilderness’ imperative in architecture and urban design.