Lowland Canterbury landscapes in the making

Abstract: This article explores environmental imaginaries of colonization in lowland Canterbury. In 1844 Edward Shortland observed that his Māori companions had an exceptionally detailed geographical knowledge of the area and its resources, yet a few years later European settlers were viewing it as an empty stage on which to envision newly‐constructed landscapes. The terrain was contested, but colonial ‘improvement’, through the creation of spaces of modernity, took no cognizance of this. The legacies of that transformation are a simplified, orderly landscape, and fractured but persistent memories of indigenous ecosystems that are now being revived.