Climate change, forest conservation and science: A case study of New Zealand, 1860s-1920
Citation
Export citationBeattie, J. (2009). Climate change, forest conservation and science: A case study of New Zealand, 1860s-1920. History of Meteorology, 5, 1-18.
Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/4154
Abstract
To most of its European settlers, New Zealand was a land blessed by Providence. A temperate climate and year-round rainfall, easy availability of land and myriad work opportunities attracted many to the new colony. Climate and health figured prominently in migration considerations and many writers took delight in pointing out, as propagandist John Ward did to intending migrants in 1839, that in New Zealand: A never-failing moisture is dispersed over the country by the clouds which collect on the mountain-tops, without the occurrence of rainy seasons, beyond storms of a few days’ duration. This refreshing moisture, combined with the influence of the sea-breezes, renders the climate very favourable to the health, and development, of the human frame. And vegetation is, from the same cause, highly luxuriant, and the verdure almost perpetual.
Date
2009Type
Publisher
International Commission on History of Meteorology
Rights
This article has been published in the journal: History of Meteorology. Used with permission.