Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T15:06:03.309Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conservation and privatization decisions in land reform of New Zealand’s high country

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2021

Adena R Rissman Open the ORCID record for Adena R Rissman [Opens in a new window] ,
Molly C Daniels ,
Peter Tait ,
Xiaojing Xing  and
Ann L Brower
Adena R Rissman*
Affiliation:
Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI53706, USA
Molly C Daniels
Affiliation:
Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI53706, USA
Peter Tait
Affiliation:
Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit, PO Box 85084, Lincoln University, Lincoln7647, Canterbury, New Zealand
Xiaojing Xing
Affiliation:
Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI53706, USA
Ann L Brower
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch8140, New Zealand
*
Author for correspondence: Dr Adena R Rissman, Email: adena.rissman@wisc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Neoliberal land reforms to increase economic development have important implications for biodiversity conservation. This paper investigates land reform in New Zealand’s South Island that divides leased state-owned stations (ranches) with private grazing leases into state-owned conservation land, private land owned by the former leaseholder and private land under protective covenant (similar to conservation easement). Conserved lands had less threatened vegetation, lower productivity, less proximity to towns and steeper slopes than privatized lands. Covenants on private land were more common in intermediate zones with moderate land-use productivity and slope. Lands identified with ecological or recreational ‘significant inherent values’ were more likely to shift into conserved or covenant status. Yet among lands with identified ecological values, higher-threat areas were more likely to be privatized than lower-threat areas. This paper makes two novel contributions: (1) quantitatively examining the role of scientific recommendations about significant inherent values in land reform outcomes; and (2) examining the use of conservation covenants on privatized land. To achieve biodiversity goals, it is critical to avoid or prevent the removal of land-use restrictions beyond protected areas.

Keywords

land reformownership changeprioritizationprivate landprivatizationprotected areaspublic landranchingtenure review
Type
Research Paper
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , September 2021 , pp. 165 - 173
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Foundation for Environmental Conservation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anselin, L (2002) Under the hood: issues in the specification and interpretation of spatial regression models. Agricultural Economics 27: 247–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arbia, G (ed.) (2014) A Primer for Spatial Econometrics. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, RF, Leonard, PB (2015) Interacting social and environmental predictors for the spatial distribution of conservation lands. PLoS ONE 10: e0140540.10.1371/journal.pone.0140540CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Binswanger, HP, Deininger, K, Feder, G (1995) Power, distortions, revolt and reform in agricultural land relations. Handbook of Development Economics 3: 2659–2772.10.1016/S1573-4471(95)30019-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boston, J, Martin, J, Pallot, J, Walsh, P (eds.) (1991) Reshaping the State: New Zealand’s Bureaucratic Revolution. Auckland, New Zealand: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brower, AL (2016) South Island high country land reform 1992–2015. Policy Quarterly 12: 70–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brower, AL, Meguire, P, DeParte, A (2012) Does South Island high country land reform give rise to rents? New Zealand Economic Papers 46: 143–158.10.1080/00779954.2011.608247CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brower, AL, Meguire, P, Monks, A (2010) Closing the deal: principals, agents, and subagents in New Zealand land reform. Land Economics 86: 467–492.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brower, AL, Page, J (2017) Freeing the land beyond the shadow of the law: twenty years of the Crown Pastoral Land Act. New Zealand Universities Law Review 27: 975–994.Google Scholar
Brunson, MW, Huntsinger, L (2008) Ranching as a conservation strategy: can old ranchers save the new West? Rangeland Ecology and Management 61: 137–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CBC (2019) Delivering better outcomes for Crown pastoral land. Cabinet Business Committee, Minute of Decision, CBC-19-MIN-0001, 29 January 2019 [www document]. URL www.linz.govt.nz/system/files_force/media/doc/cabinet_minute_cbc-19-min-0001.pdf?download=1 Google Scholar
Cook, CN, Valkan, RS, Mascia, MB, McGeoch, MA (2017) Quantifying the extent of protected-area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement in Australia. Conservation Biology 31: 1039–1052.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Deguise, IE, Kerr, JT (2006) Protected areas and prospects for endangered species conservation in Canada. Conservation Biology 20: 48–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DoC (2016) Significant inherent values [date file]. Wellington, New Zealand: Department of Conservation. Received after a request under the Official Information Act 1982.Google Scholar
Derthick, M, Quirk, PJ (1985) The Politics of Deregulation. Washington, DC, USA: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Díaz, S, Settele, J, Brondízio, E, Ngo, HT, Guèze, M, Agard, J et al. (2019) Summary for Policymakers of the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Addendum 1. Bonn, Germany: Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Google Scholar
Dorwart, CE, Moore, RL, Leung, YF (2009) Visitors’ perceptions of a trail environment and effects on experiences: a model for nature-based recreation experiences. Leisure Sciences 32: 33–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairfax, SK, Gwin, L, King, MA, Raymond, L, Watt, LA (2005) Buying Nature: The Limits of Land Acquisition as a Conservation Strategy, 1780–2004. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ferraro, PJ, Hanauer, MM, Miteva, DA, Canavire-Bacarreza, GJ, Pattanayak, SK, Sims, KR (2013) More strictly protected areas are not necessarily more protective: evidence from Bolivia, Costa Rica, Indonesia, and Thailand. Environmental Research Letters 8: 025011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holden, ST, Otsuka, K (2014) The roles of land tenure reforms and land markets in the context of population growth and land use intensification in Africa. Food Policy 48: 88–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IUCN (2008) Guidelines for Applying Protected Area Management Categories, Dudley, N (ed.). Gland, Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of Nature.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, JR (1996) Introductory Digital Image Processing, a Remote Sensing Perspective, 2nd edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Joppa, LN, Pfaff, A (2009) High and far: biases in the location of protected areas. PLoS ONE 4: e8273.10.1371/journal.pone.0008273CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kamal, S, Grodzińska-Jurczak, M, Brown, G (2015) Conservation on private land: a review of global strategies with a proposed classification system. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 58: 576–597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiesecker, JM, Comendant, T, Grandmason, T, Gray, E, Hall, C, Hilsenbeck, R et al. (2007) Conservation easements in context: a quantitative analysis of their use by The Nature Conservancy. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5: 125–130.10.1890/1540-9295(2007)5[125:CEICAQ]2.0.CO;2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambin, EF, Meyfroidt, P, Rueda, X, Blackman, A, Börner, J, Cerutti, PO et al. (2014) Effectiveness and synergies of policy instruments for land use governance in tropical regions. Global Environmental Change 28: 129–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landcare Research New Zealand (2010) NZLRI Land Use Capability [data file]. Wellington, New Zealand: Landcare Research Press [www document]. URL https://lris.scinfo.org.nz/layer/48076-nzlri-land-use-capability/ Google Scholar
Landcare Research New Zealand (2012) Threatened Environments Classification [data file]. Wellington, New Zealand: Landcare Research Press [www document]. URL https://lris.scinfo.org.nz/layer/48282-threatened-environments-classification-2012/ Google Scholar
Lee, WG (2018) Natural history features of the high-country and drylands of the South Island, New Zealand. Journal of New Zealand Grasslands 80: 27–32.10.33584/jnzg.2018.80.357CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LINZ (2013) NZ Place Names (NZGB) [data file]. Wellington, New Zealand: Land Information New Zealand [www document]. URL https://data.linz.govt.nz/layer/51681-nz-place-names-nzgb/ Google Scholar
LINZ (2015) Tenure review, a detailed guide. Wellington, New Zealand: Land Information New Zealand [www document]. URL www.linz.govt.nz/system/files_force/media/doc/cp_tenure-review_guide_201505.pdf Google Scholar
LINZ (2016) South Island pastoral leases [data file]. Wellington, New Zealand: Land Information New Zealand [www document]. URL https://data.linz.govt.nz/layer/51572-south-island-pastoral-leases/data/ Google Scholar
LINZ (2019) Crown Pastoral Land regulatory system – regulatory system assessment. Wellington, New Zealand: Land Information New Zealand [www document]. URL www.linz.govt.nz/news/2019-02/managing-our-regulatory-systems Google Scholar
LINZ/National Topographic Office (2016) NZ 8m Digital Elevation Model (2012) [data file]. Wellington, New Zealand: Land Information New Zealand [www document]. URL https://data.linz.govt.nz/layer/51768-nz-8m-digital-elevation-model-2012/ Google Scholar
Liu, J, Zhan, J, Deng, X (2005) Spatio-temporal patterns and driving forces of urban land expansion in China during the economic reform era. AMBIO 34: 450–455.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mancheno, CSM, Zazanashvili, N, Beruchashvili, G (2017) Effectiveness of the network of protected areas of the South Caucasus at representing terrestrial ecosystems after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Environmental Conservation 44: 158–165.10.1017/S0376892916000424CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margules, CR, Pressey, RL (2000) Systematic conservation planning. Nature 405: 243–253.10.1038/35012251CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mascia, MB, Pailler, S (2011) Protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (PADDD) and its conservation implications. Conservation Letters 4: 9–20.10.1111/j.1755-263X.2010.00147.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mascia, MB, Pailler, S, Krithivasan, R, Roshchanka, V, Burns, D, Mlotha, MJ et al. (2014) Protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (PADDD) in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, 1900–2010. Biological Conservation 169: 355–361.10.1016/j.biocon.2013.11.021CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMillen, DP (1992) Probit with spatial autocorrelation. Journal of Regional Science 32: 335–348.10.1111/j.1467-9787.1992.tb00190.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMillen, DP (2015) McSpatial: nonparametric spatial data analysis. R package version 2.0 [www document]. URL https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=McSpatial Google Scholar
Monks, A, Hayman, E, Walker, S (2019) Attrition of recommended areas for protection. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 43: 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ODT (2018) Call to revitalise Mackenzie vision. Otago Daily Times, 24 February.Google Scholar
Ojeda, D (2012) Green pretexts: ecotourism, neoliberal conservation and land grabbing in Tayrona National Natural Park, Colombia. Journal of Peasant Studies 39: 357–375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortega, AAC (2012) Desakota and beyond: neoliberal production of suburban space in Manila’s fringe. Urban Geography 33: 1118–1143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owley, J, Rissman, AR (2016) Trends in private land conservation: increasing complexity, shifting conservation purposes and allowable private land uses. Land Use Policy 51: 76–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, J (2009) Grazing rights and public lands in New Zealand and the western United States: a comparative perspective. Natural Resources Journal 49: 403–342.Google Scholar
Pfaff, A, Robalino, J, Lima, E, Sandoval, C, Herrera, LD (2014) Governance, location and avoided deforestation from protected areas: greater restrictions can have lower impact, due to differences in location. World Development 55: 7–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pressey, RL (1994) Ad hoc reservations – forward or backward steps in developing representative reserve systems. Conservation Biology 8: 662–668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qin, S, Golden Kroner, RE, Cook, C, Tesfaw, AT, Braybrook, R, Rodriguez, CM et al. (2019) Protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement as a threat to iconic protected areas. Conservation Biology 33: 1275–1285.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
R Core Team (2020) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria: R-project [www document]. URL https://www.R-project.org Google Scholar
Rissman, AR, Merenlender, AM (2008) The conservation contributions of conservation easements: analysis of the San Francisco Bay Area protected lands spatial database. Ecology and Society 13: 40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sayre, N (2009) Land, labor, livestock and (neo)liberalism: understanding the geographies of pastoralism and ranching. Geoforum 40: 705–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, JM, Davis, FW, McGhie, RG, Wright, RG, Groves, C, Estes, J (2001) Nature reserves: do they capture the full range of America’s biological diversity? Ecological Applications 11: 999–1007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Symes, WS, Rao, M, Mascia, MB, Carrasco, LR (2016) Why do we lose protected areas? Factors influencing protected area downgrading, downsizing and degazettement in the tropics and subtropics. Global Change Biology 22: 656–665.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Venter, O, Magrach, A, Outram, N, Klein, CJ, Possingham, HP, Di Marco, M, Watson, JE (2018) Bias in protected-area location and its effects on long-term aspirations of biodiversity conventions. Conservation Biology 32: 127–134.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walker, S, Cieraad, E, Grove, P, Lloyd, K, Myers, S, Park, T, Porteous, T (2007) Guide for Users of the Threatened Environment Classification. Version 1.1. Wellington, New Zealand: Landcare Research Press [www document]. URL www.linz.govt.nz/system/files_force/media/doc/cp_tenure-review_guide_201505.pdf Google Scholar
Walker, S, Price, R, Stephens, RTT (2008) An index of risk as a measure of biodiversity conservation achieved through land reform. Conservation Biology 22: 48–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weeks, ES, Overton, JM, Walker, S (2013) Estimating patterns of vulnerability in a changing landscape: a case study of New Zealand’s indigenous grasslands. Environmental Conservation 40: 84–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, D (2020) Hyperbole flies over high country. Newsroom (29 July 2020) [www document]. URL https://www.newsroom.co.nz/hyperbole-flies-over-high-country Google Scholar
Wolford, W (2007) Land reform in the time of neoliberalism: a many-splendored thing. Antipode 39: 550–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, D (2004) Our Islands, Our Selves: A History of Conservation in New Zealand. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Rissman et al. supplementary material

Rissman et al. supplementary material 1

Download Rissman et al. supplementary material(File)
File 4.5 MB
Supplementary material: File

Rissman et al. supplementary material

Rissman et al. supplementary material 2

Download Rissman et al. supplementary material(File)
File 79.9 KB