Download SHET project FINAL report Geoff Wilson

SEALE-HAYNE EDUCATIONAL TRUST
FINAL PROJECT REPORT
The purpose of this form is for applicants in receipt of grants to provide the Trustees with a
report on the progress of their project
Please ensure that this Report is not more than three sides of A4 (Arial, font size 12).
Title of Project
Conflict between productivist agriculture and environmental policy: the
Resource Management (1991) and productivist land use in central
South Island, New Zealand
Name of Applicant(s)
Geoff Wilson
Start date:
1.1.2012
Completion date:
10.4.2012
Funds awarded:
£3000 (applied for
£6000)
Funds spent:
£3000
Please attach a financial statement from your faculty/college accounting point showing
a breakdown of the costs incurred.
State the original objectives of the project:
The project will have 5 key objectives:
 Building on earlier collaborative work (Wilson and Memon, 2005; Memon and Wilson, 2007)
to analyse the key drivers of agricultural intensification and their environmental implications in
the western Canterbury Plains (New Zealand [NZ])
 To evaluate how the cornerstone of NZ environmental policy – the Resource Management
Act 1991 – has been implemented to address environmental issues linked to intensification of
agriculture in the western Canterbury Plains
 To assess notions of potential conflict among stakeholders between environmental policy and
agricultural intensification
 To provide recommendation to policy-makers how environmentally unsustainable productivist
land use can be addressed in future
 To provide the basis for a further large application (NZ$ 200,000-300,000) to NZ’s Marsden
Fund on a similar subject to be submitted mid 2012 (Memon and Wilson lead investigators)
All objectives are closely associated with the aims of the Trust to support research in agriculture and
land use, in particular by investigating in detail processes underlying agricultural intensification and
environmental degradation in one of the key agricultural production areas in NZ, by investigating the
impacts of policy on agricultural decision-making and land use, and by aiming at providing tangible
research results that are not only theoretically well informed but that will also provide
recommendations for the refinement of policies addressing rural/environmental issues in future. This
project will also form the basis for further (larger) funding through NZ’s Marsden Fund.
Have those objectives been achieved? If not, please explain why.
Yes, although some of the work to be conducted by Prof Ali Memon has been severely
disrupted by the recent earthquakes in Christchurch (Lincoln University has been badly
affected). Application to Marsden Fund is in progress.
Financial statement and proof of expenditure of funds (against receipts) can be obtained
U:\DH\Seale-Hayne Educational Trust – Final Report for Funded Projects
Page 1 of 2
from the Finance Division if needed.
Please summarise your project, outlining methods, results and conclusions
The project formed a logical continuation of research conducted during my last sabbatical in 2007:
Local-regional level interpretations of the NZ Resource Management Act: implications of agricultural
intensification for environmental management. Work was conducted with Prof Ali Memon and Rob
Burton, Lincoln University. I was based at Lincoln University and the town of Wanaka (case study
site) for most of the time, working on articles emerging from my recent book, helping Ali Memon to
collect empirical data on above project (mainly through interviews with local-regional level policymakers and stakeholders and using secondary sources), and beginning work on two articles targeted
at major academic journals summarising findings from the NZ project (see below).
The fieldwork, which was mainly comprised of interviews with various stakeholders associated with
dairy intensification in and around Wanaka and the Canterbury Plains, went according to plan, with
47 interviews conducted overall (involving 6000 km driving to often remote farms!), including
interviews with policy officials in Christchurch and Queenstown and interviews with NGO
representatives in various locations. Preliminary results suggest that increasing demand for NZ dairy
products is creating a ripple effect of intensification into desertification-prone areas around Wanaka
(e.g. upper Clutha River terraces) with devastating repercussions for water and native forest
management. The role of the giant multinational conglomerate Fonterra has been particularly
prominent in encouraging further environmentally-damaging intensification.
What specific outcomes (tangible or intangible) have arisen from this research
(including publication, events, media interest and other forms of dissemination)?
Articles in press, submitted or about to be submitted based on sabbatical research period:
1. Wilson, G.A. and R.J. Burton (submitted): Conceptualising ‘neo-productivist’ agricultural
spaces: neo-productivism as ‘resurgent productivism’ or ‘cooperative productivism’?
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.
2. Another paper is in preparation:
Wilson, G.A. and P.A. Memon: Interpretations of the New Zealand Resource Management Act by
local- and regional-level policy-makers: implications for native forest management.
Geoforum.
U:\DH\Seale-Hayne Educational Trust – Final Report for Funded Projects
Page 2 of 2