Site Visits Information
Friday 3rd April
Landscapes of recreation
Queenstown is known as the adventure tourism capital of the world. Based on this reputation, other recreational activities have been developed to cater for visitors which may also have dramatic impacts on the landscape.
Massive investment over the past few years in local ski fields has significantly expanded the infrastructure. New service buildings, snow-making machines and reservoirs with associated earthworks have been built on local mountain tops. While all of these modifications have an immediate effect on the landscape, the sustainability of developments such as these may have broader effects.
Golfing is another recreational activity where enormous investment has been made over the past decade. The Wakatipu Basin is now the location of three premier golf courses: Millbrook; Jacks Point; and The Hills private golf course near Arrowtown, the venue for last year’s NZ Open. Another golf course is proposed in Gibbston and a further golf resort is consented at Parkins Bay in Wanaka. Given other development pressures on the landscape it poses the question, are golf course developments a way of maintaining rural character?
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Landscapes for rural living
Tenure review has become a contentious issue in terms of its impact on landscapes. Once seen as a mechanism to protect landscapes it can become a means of free-holding land for rural subdivision and development at great cost to important landscapes. Examples where tenure review has allowed residential development and at the same time funding ecological restoration and wildling pine control will be examined.
At the other end of the spectrum, rural areas of the Wakatipu Basin are being subdivided to create life-style lots. One such development, as yet unbuilt, has been inspired by Charles Jenks’ Garden of Cosmic Speculation.
While undertaking a close comparison of these two models of rural living participants will also have the opportunity of examining the effects of rural subdivision on the broader Wakatipu landscape.
Saturday 4th April
Landscapes of production
One of the most notable forces altering New Zealand’s contemporary landscapes is that of changes in rural production. In much of the country this entails the move from sheep farming and forestry to dairying. However, in the Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago Districts the main change in production has been from sheep farming and orchards to viticulture.
This field trip will undertake a tour of the Gibbston Valley, Bannockburn and Bendigo wine-growing areas (unfortunately excluding wine-tasting!). The declining profitability of sheep farming and increasing recognition of the land’s potential for viticulture has resulted in rapid landscape change in these areas of Central Otago. Wine tourism and rural living within boutique vineyards also impact on the rural character.
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Landscapes of energy
The construction of artificial lakes for hydro power has had a significant impact on the landscapes of Central Otago. Further projects are currently in the planning stages, including the ‘Project Hayes’ and ‘Mahinerangi’ wind farms and the Nevis Valley hydro project.
While wind power is the landscape issue of the day this field trip will undertake a tour of proposed dam sites on the Clutha River at Luggate and Queensberry, and to Lake Dunstan, a large man-made lake created by the Clyde Dam. The site visit will explore issues around renewable energy generation, including effects on landscape and heritage values and the downstream positive and negative effects of hydro lakes. Can an artificial lake be an outstanding natural landscape?