‘The land we have we must hold’: soil erosion and soil conservation in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century New Zealand

Most accounts of the emergence of soil conservation practices in New Zealand have been written by individuals centrally involved in the area. These accounts typically give prominence to the motives and actions of individuals. This paper offers a contrasting viewpoint by discussing developments in soil conservation in terms of some of the elemental functions of states. This perspective reveals how soil conservation in New Zealand emerged out of a ‘war against nature’ linked to colonial land settlement, how in the twentieth century it performed both a social welfare and economic management function, and less obviously how soil conservation was interpreted in terms of national identity.