Of all the beautiful landscape photos that highly accomplished photographer and friend Rainer Kant took while he lived in New Zealand, this must be one of my favourites. What is particularly striking about this landscape is that (more…)
August 11, 2010
When two landscapes collide
Posted by envirohistorynz under commentary | Tags: beech forest, landscape, Lewis Pass, New Zealand, pasture, photography, production and conservation, Rainer Kant |1 Comment
February 27, 2010
Jeanette Fitzsimons: How our attitudes towards the environment have changed 1974 – 2010
Posted by envirohistorynz under commentary | Tags: beech forest, Buller, citizens' movement, farming, fertiliser, Fonterra, Friends of the Earth, Green Party, indigenous forestry, Jeanette Fitzsimons, lowland streams, mind set, nuclear free NZ, nuclear power, Okarito, regional councils, rivers, Rod Donald |[3] Comments
Jeanette Fitzsimons, former co-leader of the Green Party, resigned from Parliament in February this year, after a long and influential political and academic career. envirohistory NZ thought it would be a good opportunity to ask Jeanette about the major shifts she has observed over the last four decades in the way we as New Zealanders view our environment.
In her response to this question, Jeanette highlights three themes: attitudes towards nuclear power, indigenous forestry and farming.
January 22, 2010
One landscape – two environmental histories
Posted by envirohistorynz under commentary | Tags: beech forest, clear-cutting, glacier, Lake Rotoroa, National Park, Nelson Lakes, Rainer Kant, rifleman, robin, South Island kaka, tomtit, wetland |Leave a Comment
Two environmental histories converge in one landscape. In the foreground is the stunningly beautiful Lake Rotoroa, one of the two lakes in Nelson Lakes National Park, surrounded by wetland vegetation, transitioning into beech forest. In the background is a commercial pine plantation, with one slope scarred by clear-cutting. Nelson Lakes National Park, established in 1956, encompasses 102,000 hectares of the northern most Southern Alps. The lakes were formed by massive glaciers gouging out troughs in the mountainous headwaters of the Buller River during the last Ice Age. The vegetation is predominantly beech, with the red and silver species growing in lower, warmer sites and mountain beech at higher altitudes. The forests are habitat to South Island kaka (a large parrot), tomtits, robins and the tiny rifleman, New Zealand’s smallest bird.
[Photo: Lake Rotoroa, Nelson Lakes National Park, by Rainer Kant]
[Source: Department of Conservation]
December 18, 2010
Vanishing forests: pre-European transformation of the South Island
Posted by envirohistorynz under commentary | Tags: beech forest, Canterbury, deforestation, Environmental History, forest cover, Janet Wilmshurst, Landcare Research, Lindis Pass, Maori, Matt McGlone, New Zealand, Nothofagus, original vegetation, Otago, Oxford Forest, paleoecology, paleoenvironmental research, podocarp forest, pollen records, Polynesians, Rainer Kant, South Island, tussocklands |Leave a Comment
New ground-breaking research, undertaken by an team of both New Zealand and international scientists, has determined how, to what extent, and over what time-frame large tracts of South Island forest were destroyed. (more…)
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