Tag Archives: Alternative Vision

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

Book Review: Hugh Campbell (2021) Farming Inside Invisible Worlds: Modernist Agriculture and its Consequences

The declining state of the rural lands – and their communities – is a growing concern for policy makers and researchers globally.  The concerns are real, more especially relating to the trends to high energy input intensification and industrialism, and … Continue reading

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Nature and Corporate Neoliberal Economics in Conflict

The laws of nature and the laws of corporate-based neoliberal economics are in conflict. Continue reading

Posted in Resilience Thinking, Thought Pieces | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Are GMOs New Zealand’s Agricultural Future?

The debate about the future of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in Hawke’s Bay (and NZ agriculture) is heating up.  A number of opinion pieces are reacting to this government’s attempts to take legislative decision making out of the region’s hands. … Continue reading

Posted in Land Use, Thought Pieces | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Industrial Farming: The Deeper Roots of Animal Cruelty

My father was a gentle stockman, and he cared for people the same. He taught us how to hunt up and how to use presence and eye when mustering, and how not to push cattle too hard. He had a … Continue reading

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Morality & Strategy Trumped by Financial Expedience

After reading the enthusiastic trumpeting of the sale of our water overseas in Saturday’s paper (17th Oct) I wondered when what is morally right got trumped by what is expedient to the financial minds.  Certainly it took a major turn … Continue reading

Posted in Building Regional Economies, Resilience Thinking | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Irrigation in New Zealand and yet more Propaganda

The following was submitted to regional papers in response to an opinion piece written by Andrew Curtis from Irrigation NZ in early September 2015. Irrigation NZ’s Andrew Curtis’s comments (3rd Sept 2015) about land use and irrigation – as well … Continue reading

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Some Water Myths – and a Few Science Myths as well

The following was published in the Hawke’s Bay Today 4th July 2015. I was surprised at the title of Dr Jacqueline Rowarth’s 30th June talk to an audience of the Hawke’s Bay Rural Business Network: “Water – urban myth and … Continue reading

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Reframing our Water as a Commons

This article was published in the Hawke’s Bay Today following the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council’s (HBRC) decision to allow an overseas water bottling plant to take water from the high quality aquifer that lies beneath the cities of Hasting and Napier. … Continue reading

Posted in Land Use, Socio-ecological Systems, Thought Pieces, Wicked Problems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Seeing the World System of Weeds – Or – Do Androids dream of Intelligent Sheep? A Compleat Ramble

An anecdote about our research focus on ‘weeds’.  I was a little mischievously provocative about our ‘weed’ research at Otago University.  I remembered an Aldo Leopold article in one of my books of his essays (no, I can’t be bothered … Continue reading

Posted in Land Use, Resilience Thinking, Socio-ecological Systems, Thought Pieces, Wicked Problems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Future Goals and Options in NZ Land Management – A Transdisciplinary View

A brief argument from some years ago to rethink land use in New Zealand “If we go through a list of some of the main problematiques that are defining the new Century, such as water, forced migrations, poverty, environmental crises, … Continue reading

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Building Land Systems for Drought-Flood Resilience

A few notes from a morning rant “Although rainwater harvest has been accomplished by humans in virtually every drought prone region of the world for millennia, our society seems to have collective amnesia about the utility, efficiency, sustainability and beauty … Continue reading

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Two strategic directions for Land Use in New Zealand: Where do we stand?

I wrote this what seems light years ago.  I think it was 2007 or 2008. This is very rough, a mind dump.  It was done quickly, and is more to do with me getting thoughts out of my mind and … Continue reading

Posted in Land Use, Thought Pieces, Wicked Problems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment