Pastoral Landscape Research Articles

Pulletop and Thornthwaite: photographs of pastoral properties in nineteenth-century New South Wales

This article compares two different photographic accounts of working pastoral landscapes in nineteenth-century New South Wales between 1860 and the mid 1890s. Joseph and Ernest Docker's photographs of their property (c. 1860–1869) disavow details of labour and land productivity in favour of producing picturesque landscape photographs. Both Dockers were educated amateurs, producing delicate, hand-made photographs demonstrating their cultural sophistication. The photographs of Pulletop Station (c. 1886–1891), in contrast, celebrate conspicuous leisure and show class relations. The owners, Edmund and Ashley Westby, commissioned the photographs to celebrate the productivity and cultural refinements of the property. The photographer, Charles Bayliss, was a commercial landscape photographer based in Sydney. The Westbys’ interest in a photographic celebration of the landscape suggests that they were concerned with new representational forms, creating a link between the acquisition of capital and the means by which it was represented. Bayliss was able to create images that simultaneously situated the Westbys as controllers of capital whilst celebrating strong masculine labour.

Pastoral capitalism: a history of suburban corporate landscapes

By the end of the twentieth century, America's suburbs contained more office space than its central cities. Many of these corporate workplaces were surrounded, somewhat incongruously, by verdant vistas of broad lawns and leafy trees. In Pastoral Capitalism, Louise Mozingo describes the evolution of these central (but often ignored) features of postwar urbanism in the context of the modern capitalist enterprise. These new suburban corporate landscapes emerged from a historical moment when corporations reconceived their management structures, the city decentralized and dispersed into low-density, auto-dependent peripheries, and the pastoral--in the form of leafy residential suburbs--triumphed as an American ideal. Greenness, writes Mozingo, was associated with goodness, and pastoral capitalism appropriated the suburb's aesthetics and moral code. Like the lawn-proud suburban homeowner, corporations understood a pastoral landscape's capacity to communicate identity, status, and right-mindedness. Mozingo distinguishes among three forms of corporate landscapes--the corporate campus, the corporate estate, and the office park--and examines suburban corporate landscapes built and inhabited by such companies as Bell Labs, General Motors, Deere & Company, and Microsoft. She also considers the globalization of pastoral capitalism in Europe and the developing world including Singapore, India, and China. Mozingo argues that, even as it is proliferating, pastoral capitalism needs redesign, as do many of our metropolitan forms, for pressing social, cultural, political, and environmental reasons. Future transformations are impossible, however, unless we understand the past. Pastoral Capitalism offers an indispensible chapter in urban history, examining not only the design of corporate landscapes but also the economic, social, and cultural models that determined their form.

The Four Seasons: Winter, by François Boucher

<i>The Four Seasons: Winter,</i> by François Boucher

Clarifying competition: the case of wildlife and pastoral livestock in East Africa

Contentious debates surrounding the relationship between peoples’ livelihoods and protected areas in East Africa have largely revolved around claims and counter-claims about the level of competition between pastoral livestock and wildlife. Habitat and dietary overlap are often cited as the primary mechanism by which competition occurs with both overlap and lack of overlap (displacement) used as evidence of competition. Despite the importance of this issue for the economic and environmental futures of the region, there has been little scientific progress for understanding the nature of livestock–wildlife competition in pastoral landscapes. This article seeks to add conceptual clarity to this debate by focusing attention on exploitation competition in ways that are relevant to dryland East Africa. The article begins by briefly reviewing the changing understandings of the concept of competition in ecology. Requirements of competition, as defined in the literature, are then related to the ecological characteristics of East African drylands. By demonstrating that competition necessarily occurs through vegetative responses, we argue that there is the need to clarify competition by differentiating between ‘proximate competition’ and competition that is mediated by vegetation change across seasons. The article concludes by outlining the implications of these clarifications for the management and study of livestock–wildlife interactions.

Influence of landscape structure on invasive predators: feral cats and red foxes in the brigalow landscapes, Queensland, Australia

Context Invasive mammalian predators are often associated with fragmented landscapes, and can compound the impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation on native fauna. Knowledge of how invasive predators are influenced by different landscape structures can assist in the mitigation of their impacts. Aims The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of landscape structure and site-scale habitat attributes on the frequency of feral-cat and red-fox detections in fragmented agricultural landscapes. Methods Field surveys of the frequency of red-fox and feral-cat visitation at a site scale were stratified for six different habitat types in six study subregions. The habitat types were large remnant patch interior, large remnant patch edge, small remnant patch, roadside verge, regrowth patch and open agricultural land adjacent to a remnant patch. Sites were centred in a 1-km buffer area from which landscape composition and configuration were calculated. We applied a generalised linear model and an information-theoretic approach to determine the effect size and importance and rank of the explanatory variables on red-fox, feral-cat and pooled cat and fox detection rates. Key results The most important factors influencing detection rates had a positive effect and included: the dominance of cropping in the landscape (cat, fox, pooled cat and fox); and the density of vegetation at a site scale (fox, pooled cat and fox). The number of native habitat patches was also an important factor in the models of red foxes and pooled invasive predators. Conclusion Spatially heterogeneous cropping landscapes incur higher rates of invasive-predator detections than do intact native-woodland and pasture landscapes at the 1-km scale. At a site scale, elevated invasive-predator detections occurred at sites with dense vegetation, characteristic of narrow woodland and the edges of large woodland patches. Implications The research findings highlight that vertebrate pest management needs to target highly fragmented agricultural landscapes that are more likely to have elevated levels of invasive-predator activity. Landscape restoration efforts need to consider the redesign of landscapes to make them less suitable for predators and more hospitable for native wildlife.

福島県岩瀬牧場の近代化産業遺産としての再評価

The purpose of this study is to reveal the historical background of Iwase Farm as Japan's first Western ranch across Kagamiishi and Sukagawa city, Fukushima Prefecture. And re-evaluate the value of a complex modern industrial heritage of Iwase Farm. Classified into seven times since opening the ranch up Iwase, said the fact the course. And organized into four categories of heritage resources in the modernization of farms and industry. Iwase Farm, as well as the value of the tangible heritage of modern industry, pastoral industry in the Meiji era technology was introduced directly from overseas to bring the landscape "Westernization" as an example of the value of the combined worth of the intangible to have. Go through the time in more than 130 years been established as the prototype of the Western livestock industry in Japan, came to have a landscape value as a pasture landscape. Japan said that the origin of the pasture landscape planning principles established at the time.

Effect of Management Modification on the Coenological Composition of the North Adriatic Pastoral Landscape (Ćićarija, Croatia)

Effect of Management Modification on the Coenological Composition of the North Adriatic Pastoral Landscape (Ćićarija, Croatia)The research aim was to assess the dynamics of the North Adriatic pastoral landscape (Ćićarija, Croatia) with regard to the coenological composition of grassland communities, and, more specifically, to: i) assess the current grassland mosaic from a coenological viewpoint; ii) assess the effects of management abandonment on grassland species composition, also taking into account, as a basis for comparison, data on pastoral communities collected in the past decades. To achieve the research aims, 73 phytosociological relevés were carried out; for each of them field data (altitude, aspect, slope, landform) and information on grassland management were collected. Multivariate analysis of phytosociological relevés led to the identification of four vegetation types (Danthonio-Scorzoneretum villosae, Carici humilis-Centaureetum rupestris, Brachypodium rupestre-dominated stands, andAnthoxantho-Brometum erecti), which were linked to landform and to grassland management. Comparison in terms of social behaviour type composition of the grassland communities surveyed in the present study with the ones surveyed in the past decades, highlighted that the current management (grassland abandonment, as well as low intensity grazing and not periodic mowing) is leading to a percentage loss of pasture and meadow characteristic species, in favour of successional and ruderal ones.

État des ressources pastorales dans une terre d’accueil et de transit des pasteurs transhumants : le terroir de Kotchari (sud-est du Burkina Faso)

The condition of pastoral resources of a land of reception and transit for transhumant herders : the Kotchari territory (Southeastern Burkina Faso). Kotchari pasturelands, which include a portion of the W National Park, were characterized by three complementary methods : an analysis of a colour composition of an Aster image, a floristical analysis and a pastoral survey. Nine pastoral landscape units with diverse tree cover were described, they include ten agrostological groups. The landscape units located outside the protected area, especially on thin to fairly deep soils, show the highest density in ligneous species and the highest herbaceous richness as well as the least dominance between species. Conversely, herbaceous phytomass and ligneous cover are higher in the protected area, particularly on the deep hydromorphic soils units. In addition, these units are more or less heterogeneous, some containing several agrostological groups. In general, the pasture lands located outside the protected area tend to be the most degraded : in some of them there is a regeneration of trees and a decrease of perennial herbaceous species. In all, although the phytomass is rather abundant and the pastoral values are acceptable in most units, those located outside the W park appear not very interesting in terms of pastoral use. Their ability to produce herbaceous regrowth after vegetation fires is low, the landscape is highly fragmented and the access to some units is not possible all year long. The pastoral status of the pastoral units inside the protected area, which have the highest phytomasses and the best pastoral values, is clearly much better. The strong interest of transhumant herders in this region seems guided on the one hand by the quality and availability of forage that is better at the end of the dry season than in their home grazing territory, and on the other hand by the opportunity of illegal use of pastoral resources in protected areas.

The Structure and Composition of a Tropical Dry Forest Landscape After Land Clearance; Azuero Peninsula, Panama

Characterization of preexisting flora is an essential preliminary step for successful land rehabilitation projects. This descriptive study was undertaken in a fragmented, dry tropical forest region in Panama. Five different habitat types were selected: active pasture, 2-yr and 5-yr abandoned pastures, forested riparian zones, and a forest fragment. Species richness, density, basal area, dispersal modes, and phenology of trees as well as their uses were determined. Diversity of preexisting seed resources as well as natural regeneration was poor after 2- and 5-yr postcattle removal, suggesting that at an early successional stage, enrichment planting is necessary. Guazuma ulmifolia and Cordia alliodora dominated the pastoral landscape, representing 63% of all inventoried trees in the active pasture. More than half the trees within pastures (76%) had some use, with shade for cattle as the most common reason for leaving trees in the landscape. The largest trees and the greatest diversity were found within the less managed forested riparian zones because of inaccessibility and water conservation. The pastoral landscape is largely shaped by farm management as well as ecological selection process which will in turn affect successional processes.

Signorelli's Court of Pan: A Search for the Subject of a Familiar Masterpiece

Despite attracting a great deal of scholarly interest, there remains a lack of consensus over the theme of Signorelli’s Court of Pan. The current article reviews a wide range of the interpretations of this painting that have been developed in recent scholarship and highlights a number of problems with these interpretations. A new interpretation of the theme of the painting is then advanced in which it is argued that the six figures depicted in the painting represent characters from Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe. It is argued that the six figures divide into two groups representing two scenes from Longus’ pastoral romance. The article concludes with the suggestion that Signorelli may have been aided in the development of the theme of the painting by Angelo Poliziano.

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis infection in wildlife on three deer farms with a history of Johne's disease

AIM: To determine the prevalence of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (Map) infection in wildlife, in pastoral landscapes with a recent history of clinical Johne's disease in livestock. METHODS: A total of 449 wild mammals and birds from three farms in the South Island of New Zealand with recent histories of clinical Johne's disease in their deer herds were trapped and examined for gross pathological changes in the gastrointestinal tract. Additionally, individual mesenteric lymph nodes from 380 mammals, and segments of gastrointestinal tract from 32 birds were excised, homogenised and cultured for viable Map bacilli. The prevalence of Map infection was then calculated for the various species. Faecal samples from those mammals which had culture-positive tissues were further cultured for the presence of Map. RESULTS: Gross pathological changes were identified in the gastrointestinal tract of four brushtail possums, one cat, six ferrets, 12 hares, six hedgehogs, three rabbits, one stoat, and one paradise shelduck. Infection with Map in the gastrointestinal tract was confirmed in only three of these cases, one each of brushtail possums, hares and hedgehogs. In contrast, Map infection in the absence of gross pathological changes was frequently recorded in enteric tract tissues of mammals and birds. Among mammals, Map infection was recorded in 18/73 (25%) brushtail possums, 4/23 (17%) cats, 15/42 (36%) hedgehogs and 29/113 (26%) rabbits. Among birds, intestinal tract tissue Map infection was recorded in 3/17 (18%) paradise shelducks. Among 64 of the 74 mammals which had Map culture-positive tissues, 38% (n=5) of hedgehogs and 11% (n=3) of rabbits also had culture-positive faecal samples. CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to identify that Map infection can be prevalent in wildlife in New Zealand. There was a high prevalence of Map infection among both scavenging and grazing wild animals. Both mammals and birds are capable of harbouring viable Map organisms in their gastrointestinal tract; further, viable Map was excreted into the environment via faeces by hedgehogs and rabbits. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Previous studies overseas have postulated a role of wildlife as reservoirs of Map infection and possible vectors of Johne's disease to livestock. Here, brushtail possums, hedgehogs and rabbits and in particular were identified as potential wildlife hosts for Map infection in NewZealand. This suggests that several wildlife species could contribute to the persistence of Map infection within a wildlife/livestock complex, and potentially, perhaps more importantly, to the spread of infection between farms.

Fallax Imago: Ovid's Narcissus and the seduction of mimesis in Roman wall painting

In the late first century CE, the myth of Narcissus became one of the most frequently represented subjects in Roman wall painting. The well-known, often reproduced images from the House of Octavius...

Detectability Counts when Assessing Populations for Biodiversity Targets

Efficient, practical and accurate estimates of population parameters are a necessary basis for effective conservation action to meet biodiversity targets. The brown hare is representative of many European farmland species: historically widespread and abundant but having undergone rapid declines as a result of agricultural intensification. As a priority species in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan, it has national targets for population increase that are part of wider national environmental indicators. Previous research has indicated that brown hare declines have been greatest in pastural landscapes and that gains might be made by focussing conservation effort there. We therefore used hares in pastural landscapes to examine how basic changes in survey methodology can affect the precision of population density estimates and related these to national targets for biodiversity conservation in the UK. Line transects for hares carried out at night resulted in higher numbers of detections, had better-fitting detection functions and provided more robust density estimates with lower effort than those during the day, due primarily to the increased probability of detection of hares at night and the nature of hare responses to the observer. Hare spring densities varied widely within a single region, with a pooled mean of 20.6 hares km−2, significantly higher than the reported national average of hares in pastures of 3.3 hares km−2. The high number of encounters allowed us to resolve hare densities at site, season and year scales. We demonstrate how survey conduct can impact on data quantity and quality with implications for setting and monitoring biodiversity targets. Our case study of the brown hare provides evidence that for wildlife species with low detectability, large scale volunteer-based monitoring programmes, either species specific or generalist, might be more successfully and efficiently carried out by a small number of trained personnel able to employ methods that maximise detectability.

GROUNDWATER INFLUENCES ON THE DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE OF RIVERINE SMALLMOUTH BASS, MICROPTERUS DOLOMIEU, IN PASTURE LANDSCAPES OF THE MIDWESTERN USA

ABSTRACTThis study examined how spring‐flow (SF) contributions to streams related to the distribution and abundance of smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieu in a predominately pasture landscape in Missouri, USA. Stream segments (N = 13) with similar landscape characters were classified by SF volume into high SF (HSF) or low SF (LSF) groups. The densities of smallmouth bass, channel unit (CU) use and temperature‐selection patterns were assessed for several life stages and frequency distributions for age 0 fish. More smallmouth bass were present in stream segments with HSF influence. Age 0 fish were twice as likely to be present in HSF stream segments. Older age classes were present in stream reaches independent of SF contribution. For all age classes, the use of particular CUs did not depend on SF influence. All age classes were more likely to be present in pools than other CUs. Microhabitat temperature selection differed among age classes. Age 0 fish selected warmer temperatures with a gradual shift towards cooler temperatures for older age classes. The length frequency of age 0 fish was skewed towards larger individuals in streams with limited SF influence, whereas the length frequency in HSF stream segments was skewed towards smaller individuals. The benefits of significant groundwater via SF influence seem to be related to increased hatch or survival of age 0 fish and the availability of optimal temperatures for adult smallmouth bass growth. Thermal refugia and stable flows provided by springs should be recognised for their biological potential to provide suitable habitat as climate change and other land‐use alterations increase temperature regimes and alter flow patterns. Published in 2011 by John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

P1-S1.22 HSV-2 prevalence across a pastoral landscape: transmission and transition among the Himba and Tjimba populations

BackgroundSexual partnerships take multiple forms among the Himba and Tjimba people living in Northwestern Namibia, including polygynous and monogamous marriage, and long- and short-term extra-marital partnerships. We hypothesised that HSV-2...

Plant and invertebrate resources for farmland birds in pastoral landscapes

On 16 UK livestock holdings within pastoral landscapes, we investigated the provision of plant and invertebrate resources for farmland birds in spring barley and winter wheat cereal-based whole crop silages as alternatives to maize and grass silages. The benefits of low input barley systems were also investigated; barley fields were subjected to two separate herbicide sub-treatments on a split-field design (high input broad-spectrum or low input narrow spectrum herbicides). The abundance of plant resources and invertebrates was assessed for three growing seasons during summer and winter for each crop type. The study clearly demonstrated the value of spring barley for the provision of plant resources when compared to the other silage cropping systems, whilst invertebrate responses were variable. No differences in plant and invertebrate resources were found between the barley treatments. Throughout the year, forage maize afforded the lowest provision of resources for farmland birds, and because it is likely that maize will continue to be grown in pastoral areas, the value of this habitat needs to be improved if farmland birds are to benefit. To provide plant and invertebrate resources for farmland birds in pastoral landscapes we strongly advocate the growing of spring sown barley whole-crop silage followed by over-wintering stubbles.

Litterfall and associated nutrient pools extend beyond the canopy of scattered eucalypt trees in temperate pastures

Scattered paddock trees are a keystone feature of temperate grazing landscapes of Australia. However, our understanding of their influence on their immediate environment, and specifically the spatial distribution and characteristics of litter, is still limited. Here, we quantified the spatial pattern of litter around 4 Eucalyptus species (Eucalyptus melliodora A. Cunn. Ex Schauer, E. viminalis Labill., E. blakelyi Maiden and E. michaeliana Blakely) in grazing landscapes on the Northern Tablelands of NSW, Australia. We examined the effect of species and soil parent material (basalt, granite and meta-sediments) on litter chemistry and chemical pools. Between 54–145 kg of litter was found around individual trees and litter density consistently declined with distance from the tree (330 g.m−2 in the inner canopy to 4 g.m−2 in the open paddock). However, an equivalent quantity of litter was found beneath and beyond the canopy indicating that a large quantity of the litter and nutrients fell beyond the edge of the canopy. Overall, leaf litter accounted for 23 to 34% of litterfall and had larger nutrient concentrations and pools than bark or stick litter. Most litter nutrients concentrations were independent of tree species or parent material but our results suggest that P, K and S were removed in foliage prior to abscission whilst Ca and Fe concentrations increased. The spatial patterns of litter distribution around scattered trees coincide with spatial patterns in soil properties that are frequently observed in these environments, and provide strong evidence of a significant link between these factors. Our results suggest that the removal of scattered trees from pastoral landscapes in this region of Australia will result in the loss of a significant litter input to the soil surface and will diminish this potentially important source of soil nutrients.

Introduction: "The Environmental Imagination and Children's Literature"

Introduction:"The Environmental Imagination and Children's Literature" David Russell, Karin Westman, and Naomi Wood What makes the imagination in children's books "environmental"? What do climatologists and botanists, children's writers and artists, and the playing child have in common? This special issue of The Lion and the Unicorn takes its title and focus from a conference on "The Environmental Imagination and Children's Literature," hosted by Trinity College at the University of Toronto in March 2010. The conference brought together authors M. T. Anderson, David Almond, Susan Cooper, Tim Wynne-Jones, and Sarah Ellis and environmental scholars Lawrence Buell and Marguerite Holloway to answer the questions posed above. We are honored to publish here, with minimal revision, the responses of Almond, Wynne-Jones, Ellis, and Holloway, which retain in print form the conversational quality of their spoken presentations. Our great thanks to conference co-organizer, Deirdre Baker, for approaching us with news of the conference and for her assistance in securing the participation of the presenters. 1 From a small island with a large population, David Almond asserts that wildness is a state of mind, of receptiveness to the past and to the dark in "A Necessary Wilderness." The essay reflects upon children's play, storytelling, and the archetypal "home-away-home" plot. Almond muses that even in the center of civilization and technological prowess, children seek out spaces that evoke atavistic wildness and danger, to return home "to tell me mam," thus completing the circuit between self and other, human and nature, mortality and cosmos. "What purpose is served by imposing . . . Apollonian principle on Dionysian nature?" Tim Wynne-Jones asks in "Where Is Here Anymore?" He had been photographing found alphabets of leaf, rock, and wood in the woods. Are sign and language a simple imposition on nature's Other? [End Page v] Using a wide range of writers and genres, from Lawrence Buell and Barry Lopez's environmentalist nonfiction to Margaret Atwood's and his own young adult novels, Wynne-Jones concludes that interpreting nature through signs also has the capacity to connect us, to establish a human habitation in and with the wild. Marguerite Holloway relies upon her scientific background in her essay, "In Amongst the Green Blades," in which she reflects upon the value of scale in children's literature. She demonstrates how differently scaled worlds depicted in children's books (from microscopic to gigantic) can help children to connect with the universe, the earth, and with each other. Sarah Ellis tackles the issue of the compatibility of narrative with the environmental imagination. She looks closely at three works—Wanda Gág's Millions of Cats, Margaret Wise Brown and Leonard Weisgard's The Little Island, and Leo Yerxa's more recent Last Leaf First Snowflake to Fall—examining the various ways the writers and illustrators use narrative in stories about the natural world. Joining the presentations from the Toronto conference is Roxanne Harde's essay "'I got everything in me': Fraggle Rock's Trash Heap, Spirit, Earth, and Connection." As its title suggests, Harde's discussion complements the conference's conversations about the environmental imagination, exploring how the popular television series Fraggle Rock (1983-87) encourages its child and adult audiences to understand, in creator Jim Henson's words, "the delicate balances of the natural world." Margery the Trash Heap, Harde explains, is "the matrix of the ecological literacy Henson promotes" and serves as "the moral center" of the show through " humor and wisdom" and "a blend of mystic and earth-centered knowledge." As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions for the journal. Please contact us at <lionunicorn@ksu.edu>. Note 1. For a published version of Lawrence Buell's contribution, see Buell's "Environmental Writing for Children: A Selected Reconaissance of Heritages, Emphases, Horizons" in The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism, edited by Greg Garrard (forthcoming, 2012). We look forward to publishing an extended version of M. T. Anderson's presentation, "E - I - E - I - O: The Reproduction and Destruction of the Pastoral Landscape in Children's Literature," and an edited version of Deidre Baker's interview with Susan Cooper, "Fantasy, Naturally," in a future issue of The Lion and the Unicorn...

Documenting Pastoral Landscapes

<p>Australia has a rich pastoral heritage extending over 200 years and across much of the continent. However, heritage inventories and conservation plans prepared by heritage management agencies for pastoral heritage sites and objects are not capturing the full range of past activities or material traces of the histories of these landscapes. I argue that this is because heritage professionals adopt a narrow view of what constitutes "material traces" in the context of the cultural heritage management of pastoral landscapes.</p><p>Using the example of Culgoa National Park in New South Wales, Australia, material remains embodying the history of this landscape are described within a cultural landscape framework. The identification of these items, whether from historical sources, community knowledge, or field survey, is described. I conclude that the process of interrogating documentary and other historical data is in many cases insufficient to identify the full extent of pastoral heritage items and values and therefore incomplete for conservation and management planning purposes. I argue for the expansion of a fabric-driven "homesteads and woolsheds" approach (commonly applied in pastoral heritage conservation and management) to a holistic model that connects homestead and woolshed complexes with their multi-layered histories and their broader cultural landscape settings.</p>

Effects of forest fragment management on vegetation condition and maintenance of canopy composition in a New Zealand pastoral landscape

AbstractResidual forest fragments in areas dominated by pastoral agriculture can have high value for biodiversity conservation but are still subject to ongoing degradation as (i) processes initiated by fragmentation continue to operate, for example, changes in canopy replacement probabilities; and (ii) deleterious processes impinge upon them from the surrounding matrix, for example, browsing and trampling by vagrant livestock. Responses by management to slow or reverse these processes require evaluation. Stock (mainly cattle and sheep) exclusion by fencing and mammal pest (mainly Trichosurus vulpecula (brushtail possum)) control are currently used as management tools to maintain or improve the vegetation condition of fragments in New Zealand. We examined the effectiveness of these tools by sampling vegetation composition, forest structure and regeneration of woody species in 41 old‐growth fragments dominated by Beilschmiedia tawa, selected to populate a factorial design that included four different fencing classes (unfenced, fenced 2–10, 10–20 and &gt;20 years ago), with and without sustained mammal pest control. Fencing for more than 10 years led to higher abundances of native ground ferns and shrubs, and lower abundances and numbers of mostly adventive herbaceous ground cover species. In contrast, lianes were less abundant with mammal pest control, whereas herbs were more abundant. Fencing led to a high‐density pulse of seedlings and saplings of woody species within 10 years that then thinned. Mammal pest control allowed increases in abundance of some species palatable to T. vulpecula, and increased the ratio of canopy to subcanopy seedlings in the regeneration pulse caused by fencing. Neither treatment, however, led to the restoration of indigenous species richness to reference forest levels, nor allowed densities of juveniles of shade‐tolerant canopy species to establish to levels commensurate with replacement of existing canopy trees. Most woody seedlings that established following fencing were of short‐lived subcanopy species. These management actions will therefore slow but not reverse the long‐term degradation of these forest fragments, which will eventually differ substantially from continuous forest under current management regimes. Additional measures such as replanting may be necessary not only to ensure replacement of some current species but also to restore lost species.