FULLY ONE THIRD OF AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND’S LAND AREA IS PROTECTED. These public conservation lands total over eight million hectares—larger than Switzerland and Denmark combined.
There seems to be a sense of closure in how we relate to this land, having locked it into its role as the place where we protect our native species and also focus a sizeable amount on our tourism activities.
In this map, we wanted to convey our public conservation lands in ways that would invite fresh perspectives, almost as an archipelago of places that had been only now discovered in the South Pacific. And with such a map we ask if, in the 21st century, we were to arrive at these places, how would we react? Would we seek to seal them off from all outside influences, or would we repeat history and seek to clear them of their forests and place as many cattle and sheep on them as was possible? Would we look to mine minerals and coal, and dam the rivers to meet our energy needs? Or would we try to create economic value through tourism and the roads, hotels and services needed? Or would we make it available as the backdrop for blockbuster movies?
The purpose of this map is not to convey that these are new lands that await development in terms of physical infrastructure. Instead, it challenges us to imagine lives within these places that strengthen their natural values while matching the economic strength of similarly sized countries.
Such questions are enormously challenging. In the 1990s, when I was designing equipment for Fairydown and Hallmark, we often thought that some of the best outdoor gear anywhere was coming out of this country. This wasn’t because we were somehow the best designers. Not even close.
The gear being developed became great because of the mountains of scree, gnarly forests, volatility of the weather and fantastic multi-week adventures right on our back doorstep that let us immediately thrash our various prototypes. Only the features that really performed, the ones that didn’t blow apart, made the cut.
Likewise, the invention of the jet boat engine didn’t just come out of Bill Hamilton’s ingenuity. It came from the challenge of Canterbury’s braided rivers, with their unpredictable shallows and ever-changing courses. Certainly no such engine design would have emerged from the banks of the Thames or the Avon.
Innovative products and services that come from this country’s positive interactions with nature show significant potential for economic growth. There seems significant potential to grow an economy based on developing innovative products and services based on this country’s positive interactions with nature. Innovations in pest eradication, ‘all-terrain’ footwear, apps that engage people with nature, remote hut design, outdoor navigation systems and nature-based engagement programmes are just a small part of what could be possible.
This map shows how each place is unique. None is like any other; each is special. As debates continue about how to grow tourism in this country, we must also ask if more visitors and infrastructure could be detrimental to the other essential services conservation lands provide, not only to provide ecosystem services but also being at the heart of this country’s nature-based provenance story, on which all the food and fibre produced here is founded, and alongside this as an incubator for nature-based and biophilic innovation.
Given the scale of restoration work under way, it is possible to sense the lands on this map extending out into those that fall outside our public conservation lands. As such, this map asks how we could also live within those environments where restoration of damaged ecosystems is actively under way. It seems their potential is not merely to arrive at a situation where these, too, are put aside or developed. Instead, could they be the very sites within which to explore how a restored nature could be the platform on which our social, cultural and economic lives also thrive?
