‘A LESSON FROM CHINA’: SOIL MENACE STORIES IN NEW ZEALAND CONSERVATION, 1910s–1940s

Large-scale deforestation in Aotearoa New Zealand following British colonisation sparked environmental concerns amongst some authorities. To promote conservation, and demonstrate the evils of deforestation, New Zealand conservationists drew upon local and international examples. This article examines the employment by New Zealand conservationists of descriptions and images of deforestation in China, many originally written or taken by Americans. To Western conservationists, China constituted a cautionary tale of what awaited countries that failed to conserve their forests. In New Zealand, this narrative, which also encompassed a racial element, proved popular amongst non-scientifically trained conservationists until the 1940s, when erosion had become a widespread problem in New Zealand and China having become an ally in the war against Japan.