This post reviews the top posts of the third quarter of 2010. Our favourite Californian again proves very popular, this quarter overtaking A tale of mining, which was very topical earlier in the year. The others in the top 5 traverse a diverse range of themes: Maori horticulture, a rare inner-city oasis of ancient forest, the surprisingly recent history of whaling in New Zealand, and eels – which have figured so large both in our streams, rivers and estuaries as well as our cultural history. Continue reading
Pūtaringamotu
The place of an echo: Pūtaringamotu (Deans Bush)
When Europeans began arriving in the Canterbury region in the early 1800s, most of the swamp forest – dominated by matai, totara and kahikatea (white pine) – that covered much of the Canterbury Plains in previous centuries was gone. It is thought that it had been destroyed by a great fire that swept across the plains during the moa hunter period, leaving only a scattered bush remnants. Continue reading
envirohistory NZ 