Category Archives: Land use strategy

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

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

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 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

Posted in Alternative Vision, Land Use, Land use strategy, Landscape function, Reimagining, Thought Pieces, Ways of Seeing | Leave a comment

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

Posted in agricultural strategy, Building Regional Economies, Industrial Mindset, Land Use, Land use strategy, Primary Sector Strategy, Thought Pieces | 4 Comments

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 | 4 Comments