Environmental anxiety in New Zealand, 1850-1920 : settlers, climate, conservation, health, environment

Abstract

Using a series of interlocking case-studies, this thesis investigates environmental anxieties in New Zealand's settler society in the period 1830-1920. A central premise of this study is that the rapid environmental transformation of New Zealand stimulated widespread anxieties and reforms within settler society. These anxieties focussed as much on the changes already begun as on apprehensions of the results of these changes. Applying the concept of environmental anxiety to settler New Zealand expands understandings about colonial culture and its environmental history. It moves debate beyond simple narratives of colonial environmental destruction. Instead, this thesis highlights the ambiguities and complexities of colonial views of the natural world. This thesis points to the insecurities behind seeming Victorian confidence, even arrogance, in the ability of science and technology to bring constant material improvement. Europeans recognised that modern living brought material advantages but that the rapid environmental changes that underpinned these improvements also brought and threatened to bring unwanted outcomes.

A diverse range of settlers worried about the effects of environmental changes. Individuals, institutions, committees, councils, doctors, scientists, artists, governments, engineers, and politicians expressed environmental anxieties of one kind or another. Some farmers, politicians and scientists held that deforestation decreased rainfall but increased temperatures. Other scientists and politicians feared that it brought devastating floods and soil erosion. Some Maori, travellers, politicians and scientists held that it destabilised sand that would inundate fertile fields. Councillors, engineers and doctors constantly debated ways of improving the healthiness of towns and cities, areas seen as particularly dangerous places in which to live. Doctors' and settlers' anxieties focused on the effects of New Zealand's climate on health and racial development. The impact of environmental change on the healthiness of certain areas, as well as the role played by humans in climate change, also provoked lively discussion.

The effects of these anxieties are evident in some of the land policies, artworks, legislation, parliamentary and scientific debates, and writings of this period. Settlers believed curbing pollution, laying out parks, planting trees and restricting the construction of unhealthy properties improved living conditions in cities. Some scientists and politicians thought setting aside forest 'climate reserves' in highland areas, tree-planting legislation and sustainable forestry practices prevented flooding and climate change. Individuals and authorities also established sanatoria and spas in particularly healthy spots, such as at the seaside and in high, dry places.

In investigating these topics, this thesis expands the discipline of environmental history, bringing to light the importance of studying urban environments, aesthetics, climate change, desertification and health. It expands the largely 'national' narratives of New Zealand's environmental histories by acknowledging that local environments, events and attitudes as well as global environments, events and attitudes shaped anxieties and policies. Global ideas, often operating at a local level, played a role in reinforcing and providing solutions to New Zealand's environmental anxieties. This thesis also acknowledges the on-going significance of Christianity in under-girding ideas about improvement and environmental protection. Most significantly, perhaps, this study underlines both that many settlers displayed an emotional attachment to the New Zealand environment and that most colonists wanted to ensure the long-term productivity of its lands.