Botanical colonisation and environmental change: exchange and distribution, botanical utility, and the Wellington Botanic Garden, 1869-1891

Abstract

This study considers the ways in which the Wellington botanic garden was both creating and responding to environmental change in colonial New Zealand. From 1869-1891 the botanic garden was under the control of the Colonial Museum and the New Zealand Institute, and managed by Dr. James Hector, the director of these institutions. Two major activities characterise this period, and in this study are cast as processes that had environmental consequences, and that also to some extent reveal an awareness of negative environmental consequences associated with colonisation. The development of relationships of botanical exchange and distribution entailed the movement of exotic flora in, out, and around New Zealand, as well as the cultivation of New Zealand native species outside their natural habitats. Certain species were identified by the botanic garden as having economic potential in the New Zealand setting, with particular emphasis placed upon the exploitation of exotic species. The environmental consequences of these processes were most evident within the confines of the botanic garden itself, which, as a bounded environment representing the intent and purposes of the European colonisers, makes the measurement of change more straightforward than in the wider environment. It is also suggested that these processes had environmental consequences beyond the confines of the botanic garden, but that the extent of such change is, in contrast, more difficult to measure. Aspects of these processes also reveal a response to environmental change, which was particularly embodied by the emergence of a conservation ethic based on the preservation of native species. A resource-based approach was evinced, which highlights the intimate connection between environmental conservation and environmental exploitation in the colonial period.