Seeing The Trees For The Forest: An Examination Of The Role Of The State In The Development Of Central Westland And Southwestern Oregon, An Environmental History

Abstract

This thesis seeks to define the role of the nation-state and show how it shaped economic development in Central Westland, New Zealand and Southwestern Oregon, USA from the mid-19th century to 1939. It investigates the administration of large tracts of forest reserves that necessitated a deep relationship between the central authority of the New Zealand and the United States Governments and their respective subregions. Both places acted as remote outposts of trans-Pacific exchanges in regard to the early fur trade with China, followed by the Trans-Pacific goldfields’ migrations in the mid to late 19th century. Both forested subregions experienced resource-based cycles of “boom and bust” with a significant shift in focus away from mining in the latter half of the 19th century. At this time, Central Westland’s and Southwestern Oregon’s infrastructure evolved from their dependence on maritime to include extensive overland transportation, during which, their post-Gold Rush Era economies consequently began to diversify based on forestry and farming. The state, rather than the market, is the primary focus of this thesis partly because external markets failed to sustain growth in these subregions through various cycles of boom and bust. The state directly and indirectly funded the key infrastructure projects that would ultimately move these economies towards a degree of stability, in the aftermath of the Gold Rush Era, and prevent a complete collapse of their developments. Both Central Westland and Southwestern Oregon experienced the beginnings of early tourism in the late 19th to early 20th centuries on the foundation of this overland infrastructure, which in turn helped mobilise campaigns to preserve scenic areas as resorts or parklands. This dissertation explores the evolution of the role of the state in the economic development of Crown or public forestlands in two distinct subregions, and how central governments responded to local land use through forest policy and legislation. From the late 19th century to early 20th century, parkland preservation and forest conservation movements grew in Central Westland and Southwestern Oregon, in response to the escalating industrialisation of the landscape. These campaigns catalysed the first initiatives by the New Zealand and United States Governments to reserve and administer forestlands for purposes other than their industrial development. Through this narrative of development and forestland reservation, this dissertation integrates such subregional developments as infrastructure projects, local environmental impacts, and subregional actors within the context of national policy in New Zealand and the United States. As this thesis demonstrates, the New Zealand and United States Governments’ administration of Crown or public lands shaped Central Westland’s and Southwestern Oregon’s respective parklands and forest reserves differently, despite their similar roots.