LANDSCAPES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE - Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities - page 72

Where the mighty totaras once proved a home for thousands of native birds,
good succulent grasses nourish stock which brings wealth to their proprietors
and revenue to the Colonial Government. Many regret the passing away of
the old order of things . . . but we cannot help fancying that to the thinking
person the present landscape is far more gratifying. True gloomy Rembrandt-
like shadows have disappeared, and . . . in the stead of the past beauties are
smiling slopes of grass . . .
(Jacobson, 1893: 229)
In about 1925, when the transition to grass was as complete as it was ever to be, a
local photographer recorded a panoramic image of the smiling slopes above Akaroa
harbour (Figure 5.3). This was nature improved.
A landscape of grass
The significance of Jesse Buckland's photograph in Figure 5.3 is that it represents
in microcosm one of the great landscape transformations of the Anthropocene. This
is the transition from trees to grass that was engineered in many parts of newly
settled European world (Wood and Pawson, 2008). It was driven by a move
towards intensified and extensified animal-based husbandries, as the growing urban
populations of northern Europe and America began to consume vastly more
protein in the form of meat and cheese. The grass in the photograph is not
indigenous, but is likely to be an introduced exotic species, cocksfoot, known in
the United States as orchard grass. New Zealand farmers sometimes obtained grass
seed by mail from English seed companies, but more usually from local companies
or nurseries that in turn sourced it from local surplus or overseas. Locally sourced
FIGURE 5.3 The improved slopes of Akaroa harbour, denuded of bush (compare to
Figure 5.2).
Source: Photograph by Jesse Buckland, c. 1925, from Okains Peak, looking south. She appears
to have carefully composed this scene, with three standing tree skeletons in the foreground,
along with other burnt detritus that speaks of the removed forest.
Source: AK: 2003.18.2.27, Akaroa Museum.