“The Exceeding Joy of Burning”— Pastoralists and the Lucifer Match: Burning the Rangelands of the South Island of New Zealand in the Nineteenth Century, 1850 to 1890

Abstract

Abstract The burning of the rangelands of the South Island of New Zealand by pastoralists in the second half of the nineteenth century has been highly contentious. The dogma of "indiscriminate burning" has become so entrenched in New Zealand’s environmental history that critics of burning have felt little need to provide evidence to support their assertions. Critics of tussock burning claimed that it was a catalyst for mass erosion in the hills and mountains of Canterbury. In recent years, scientists have concluded that this was unlikely as much of the erosion predated European settlement. This essay is part of the reappraisal of rangeland burning. It uses archival evidence from station diaries and memoirs to answer the questions of why the pastoralists burned, how often they burned, and when they burned. These sources show that burning was an important management tool and that the burning practices of the runholders in this study were characterized by discrimination.