A 10 part series written and presented by Dr Kenneth Cumberland looking at how New Zealanders remade their landscape.
Producer GEORGE ANDREWS
Directors WAYNE TOURELL and MALCOLM HALL
TELEVISION NEW ZEALAND/DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION/FLETCHER CHALLENGE
1) A Land Apart
One of the last places to be discovered, New Zealand stood apart, a land of mountains, forests and birds a land ready for the taking. When changes came, they were swift and dramatic.
2) The First Footprints
Who were the first people to reach New Zealand? Where did they come from and how did they get here? Professor Cumberland separates scientific evidence from legend.
3) Ready For The Taking
Once Captain Cook put New Zealand on the map, the stage was set for a hundred years of ruthless exploitation. Adventurers and traders scrambled to get their hands on the new land's accessible resources -seals, whales, kauri spars. When the coastal resources were exhausted, men penetrated deep into the South Island interior in the frantic search for gold.
4) The Pastoralists
Though large-scale sheep rearing began in the Wairarapa, it was the South Island -the world's last remaining grassland that attracted squatters and sheepmen in the 1850s. Those who got there first established huge leasehold estates. From their high-country mansions they dominated provincial and national politics for half a century.
5) Go North, Young Man
The dairy industry had it's origins in the long depressions of the 1880s and 1890s. Pres-sure from the unemployed and the influence of a Scottish giant named John McKenzie, forced the subdivision of the great South Island estates. In the North Island. Māori land was taken for settlers. The drift to the north began, and the cow-cockey was here to stay.
6) The Bitter and the Sweet
Settling the forested coastal areas of the North Island was hard enough. but for the first 40 years of the 20th century. effective settlement of the hill country interior was virtually impossible. Only after World War II did aircraft, bulldozers, superphosphate and weedkillers, make possible the conquest of the hills.
7) Nature Fights
Man's success in imprinting his mark on the New Zealand landscape has not been without cost. Introduced grasses and domestic livestock are now the basis of our economy - but with them came plant and animal pests and diseases.
8) The Main Trunk Line
Getting around New Zealand has never been easy. Whether on foot, by canoe, coach or by early motor vehicle through mud and loose shingle, travellers could rarely be certain of reaching their destination. Even today, air travel around New Zealand is often subject to widespread disruption. Yet despite the difficulty, New Zealanders at home or abroad travel more frequently than the people of any other country.
9) Towns and Their Times
Despite their dependence on a rural economy, most New Zealanders live in towns - and they always have. The story of urban New Zealand goes back to 1840, when John Logan Campbell arrived on the shores of the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland.
10) The Journey Ahead
What influences will shape the landmarks of the future? How will new markets and new technology change the way New Zealanders live in the year 2000? An attempt to imagine how we shall be using our land, our energy resources, and the potential of electronics. An examination also of our future relations with our neighbours in and around the Pacific.
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