Category Archives: Land use policy

Integrated Agro-ecological Systems Land Use vs the ‘dis-integrated’ industrial machine

There is a difference in kind between complex, integrated, low input, free range systems of land, soil, organic matter, fungi & macroinvertebrates, plants & animals, and …. ….. industrial high energy input feedlot systems which abuse each of those – … Continue reading

Posted in agricultural strategy, Environmental Philosophy, Industrial Mindset, Land Use, Land use policy, Thought Pieces, Ways of Seeing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Financial Crises and Forestry Financial Myopia (again)

Our land use ‘strategies’ are often no more than a dedication to financial tactics. It creates fragility and blinds us to potential futures. Is forestry quietly waiting in front of the spreadsheets without bothering to look outside? Continue reading

Posted in Forestry, High value, Industrial Mindset, Land Use, Land use policy, Land use strategy, Neoliberalism & Corporatism, resilience, Strategic thinking, Thought Pieces | Leave a comment

New Zealand Forestry: Getting off the Love affair with Simple

The British Columbian forestry sector imploded through 2018-2020. There are lessons here for New Zealand and elsewhere. Continue reading

Posted in Forestry, Land Use, Land use policy, Reimagining, Resilience Thinking, Strategic thinking, Thought Pieces, Wicked Problems | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Biodiversity in an Age of Responsibility

The Foresters’ Forum – Further notes on what it is to be a forester …. rather than a tree agronomist. 2020 hasn’t just been about Covid-19.  The stories online that should most concern us as foresters are the significance of … Continue reading

Posted in Land Use, Land use policy, Strategic thinking, Thought Pieces | Leave a comment

Shifting the Culture of Development Policy in NZ – From Linear Technocracy to People-Place Complex

Forestry is not about trees, it is about people. And it is about trees only insofar as trees can serve the needs of people. (Jack Westoby, 1990) A fellow forester and I were having coffee – which he complained about … Continue reading

Posted in Building Regional Economies, Land Use, Land use policy, Reimagining, Socio-ecological Systems, Thought Pieces | Leave a comment

From Land as Factory, to Land as System: Realising the Potential that the Factory Technician cannot See

This is a follow-up blog to my previous, where I examined the false assumptions agribusiness analysts continue to make, and continue to be taught.   Those assumptions and world views actively discourage any imagination of other elements such as woodlands, wetlands … Continue reading

Posted in agricultural strategy, Industrial Mindset, Land Use, Land use policy, Land use strategy, Landscape function, Thought Pieces | Leave a comment

The Economics of Space in Land Use: and our Unrealised Potential in New Zealand

New Zealand industrial agribusiness uses a variety of false assumptions about the economics of space that works against the integration of trees, wetlands and other diversification elements into our farmed landscapes.  It conceptualises complex and multifunctional landscapes as simplified factories; a … Continue reading

Posted in agricultural strategy, Alternative Vision, Building Regional Economies, Land Use, Land use policy, Thought Pieces | Leave a comment

Changing the Framing of our Lands and Forests …. and Hedgehogs – and Foxes

“The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing.” Archilochus The Parliamentary Commission for the Environment (PCE) report Farms, Forests and Fossil Fuels: The next Great Landscape Transformation was released 26th March 2019. Amidst all the calls for clarity … Continue reading

Posted in agricultural strategy, Alternative Vision, Building Regional Economies, Land Use, Land use policy, Land use strategy, Landscape function, Reimagining, Thought Pieces | 3 Comments

Reimagining landscapes as socio- and agro-ecosystems [1]

Preamble: Dr Mike Joy brought a team of people together to consider the question of how we can help solve New Zealand’s freshwater crisis.  The contributions were published by Bridget Williams Books as Mike Joy (Ed) 2018 Mountain to Sea: Solving … Continue reading

Posted in agricultural strategy, Alternative Vision, Building Regional Economies, Commodity trap, Land Use, Land use policy, Linkages, Reimagining, Resilience Thinking, Socio-ecological Systems, Thought Pieces, Water retention, Wicked Problems | 2 Comments

Ways of Seeing III: Looking for the Many Moving Things

 “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.“ F. Scott Fitzgerald I read that Fitzgerald quote in a book by Roger … Continue reading

Posted in Land use policy, Socio-ecological Systems, Ways of Seeing | 4 Comments