The New Zealand timber economy, 1840–1935

Environmental Failure, Success and Sustainable Development: The Hauraki Plains Wetlands Through Four Generations of New Zealanders

“…Because of the slow growth rates of indigenous New Zealand tree species, and the unfavourable conditions for planting fast-growing exotic species, reforestation was not a short-term option for the Bagnalls as it was in other regions of New Zealand facing the same dilemma. 25 The Bagnalls could stay on and invest their capital and energies in dairying, or they could move on. They chose the latter.…”

Colonial Forestry at its Limits: The Latter Day Career of Sir David Hutchins in New Zealand 1915-1920

“…Not until 1897, when forest inexhaustibility was rejected, did the settler state re-engage with forestry, and then, encouraged by earlier private experimentation, only in a very limited way via a modest exotic tree planting programme. 15 These concerns culminated in a Royal Commission on Forestry in 1913 which set aside some forested areas as forest reserves, and recommended doubling the state exotic tree planting effort to 7500 acres [3035 hectares] per annum in order meet a projected timber famine in thirty years (i.e. 1943).…”

“…19 Much that happens in the 1915 to 1925 period disrupts the idea that there was a straightforward transition from 1890s indigenous forest preservation to the creation of an exotic plantation estate intended to meet future timber requirements in the 1920s. 20 To fully appreciate this point, however, it is useful to bring external circumstances back into the equation and to consider the case Hutchins made for the future direction of forest policy in New Zealand from 1915 to 1920.…”

Ledgers and landscapes: Indicators of rural landscape change in southern New Zealand, 1878–1919

“…New Zealand is one of a ‘distinctive group of regions of recent settlement, developed during the nineteenth century and part of the world's expanding capitalist economy’ (Hearn , p. 117), where the ‘rhetoric of colonization oriented would‐be settlers towards farming endeavours’ (Roche , p. 299). LeHeron and Roche () showed how changes in world capitalism since 1840 had periodically affected the profitability of pastoral farming in New Zealand, while Pearson and Thorns () concluded that the country remained a colonial society until 1890, its economy dominated by land‐based industries from then until 1935.…”