Land tenure in the Canterbury high country

Abstract

High country tussock land, the mountain backbone of the South Island, has been used for extensive sheep farming since its first occupation in the 1850's. Today ten million acres - a significant proportion of New Zealand's sixty-seven million acres - are held on pastoral tenure. This thesis seeks to show the influence of land tenure on pastoral practices in the high country. The significance of land tenure rests on two separate factors : firstly, the contribution of high country pastoral production to the New Zealand economy; secondly, the high country serves many purposes, particularly water catchment and hydro electric power production, and potential demands in these fields are far greater than present utilization. All of these functions require conservation of the soil and water resources. Thus farming practices which affect the condition of the land ultimately influence all the functions of the high country.