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Category Archives: Viewpoint
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 agricultural strategy, Commoditisation, Complex Adaptive Systems, Culture-Nature, Economics of Natural Systems, Land use policy, Land use strategy, Managing Complexity, Mechanistic Worldview, Resilience theory, Socio-Ecological Systems, Strategy Vs Technocrats, Sustainable Land Management, Technology Treadmill
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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
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
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
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
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
Reimagining Landscapes I: Rejecting the Machine
How do you separate the personal from the professional? We are taught to deal in the ‘objective’, in measured things. But the whole idea of reimagining how we look at landscapes – our so-called ‘working lands’ of farms and forests … Continue reading
What’s Good about Gorse
I recall some time in the distant past having to put up with Wordsworth going on a bit about ‘golden’ daffodils. Saccharine sweet. They’re not even golden. More yellow really – similar to broom. Now for the colour of deep, … Continue reading
Posted in Land Use, Landscape function, Thought Pieces
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Reforming our Regional Economy I: Value over Volume
Why do we manage land the way we do? Why does New Zealand focus on ever-more gross production over a great scale of sameness? Why do we talk of “feeding the world” when we can at best feed 40 million … Continue reading
The Loss of the Napier-Gisborne Rail Link: Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold
This article criticising the current government’s decision to close the Napier-Gisborne rail line was published in the NZ J Forestry in December 2012. ================================================================ Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart, … Continue reading
There are Alternatives to the Ruataniwha Dam
There are Alternatives to the Ruataniwha Dam. via There are Alternatives to the Ruataniwha Dam.
Land and Water Concerns of Federated Farmers and Irrigation NZ
Federated Farmers and Irrigation New Zealand Questions Chris Perley Ngaruroro Ward, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council Federated Farmers and Irrigation NZ provided the following questions (italicised within text). Here is my response. Introduction I am passionate about the potential of our … Continue reading
Does Ozymandias Live in the Bay?
A democratic society is based on the values of an open society, those nebulous things that don’t fit into a financier’s or an economist’s spreadsheet. These values provide for the trust, participation, creativity, freedom and imagination that makes the good … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Vision, Community resilience, Democracy, Knowledge Systems, Local governance, Management Style, Social Capital, Virtues
Tagged Aldous Huxley, Arrogance, Command & control, Democracy, George Orwell, Governance, Hubris, Lessons of history, Phronesis, Power, Practical Wisdom, Privacy, Propaganda, Resilience theory, Robert Putnam, Social Capital, Social institutions, Social Resilience, Social values, Surveillance society, Transactional vs. Transformational management
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Realising the Potential of Hawke’s Bay (and NZ Primary Sector)
Posted in agricultural strategy, Alternative Vision, Commodity trap, Community resilience, Environmental value, False clichés, Fruitbowl or Dustbowl, High value, Industrial Mindset, Land Use, Land use strategy, Landscape function, Local governance, Market position, Mordor vs the Shire, Primary Sector Strategy, Quality vs Commodity, Transfer, Water retention
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