Pastoralism and the transformation of the rangelands of the South Island of New Zealand 1841 to 1912 : Mt Peel Station, a case study

Abstract

The transformation of the rangelands of the South Island of New Zealand during the pastoral era fits into the wider international context of European expansion into the 'new' world. European settlers displaced native peoples, introduced 'old' world animals and plants, and imposed a capitalist system that converted local resources into international commodities. In New Zealand the orthodox explanation of the pastoral impact on the rangelands claims that pastoralists introduced an unsustainable system of land use to the region. The pastoralists' indiscriminate burning practices and overstocking with sheep opened up the country to invasion by rabbits. Burning and overgrazing by sheep and rabbits stripped the natural fertility of the soils and left the country depleted, eroded, and overwhelmed by pests and weeds.

This thesis sets out to test those claims. It explores burning, the stocking of the rangelands with sheep and the impact of rabbits in detail. It also examines other land management practices, as well as sheep breeding, to see what impact they had on the landscape. The timeframe is set between 1841, when formal British settlement was established in the South Island, and 1912, by which time most of the great estates and stations had been broken up into smaller runs and farms.

The thesis uses station diaries, memoirs, contemporary newspapers and farming journals to assess what happened on the ground during the pastoral era. In particular, the thesis uses Mt Peel Station as a case study to examine the intensification in land use that took place between 1841 and 1912, in order to explain the transformation of the landscape and to answer the questions: what happened, how did it happened and why did it happened as it did?

These sources illustrate that the pastoral era was characterised by innovation. Pastoralists had access to technical and scientific information from around the world. Some conducted their own experiments to improve the productivity of the land and their stock. There was also a learning process involved in adapting their methods to fit the local rangeland environments. They were not simply rapacious capitalists out to strip the wealth from the land for their own personal gain; indeed, many pastoralists set out to establish viable and sustainable enterprises.

The thesis argues that the rangelands consisted of a variety of landscapes and climates. Differences in resource endowments had a considerable influence in shaping the environmental outcomes on different stations. Aridity and rabbits were two key factors in the depletion of the vegetation and the degradation of the landscape in the rangelands. Runs in semi-arid districts that were overwhelmed by rabbits suffered long-term damage. In districts where rainfall was more reliable stations that had been overrun by rabbits recovered remarkably quickly. Stations like Mt Peel, that were largely unaffected by the first rabbit plague, were able to maintain and even increase their productivity up to the time they were subdivided. The orthodox analysis of the transformation of the rangelands in the pastoral era does not account for these differences in outcomes.