The 'Wylding' of Te Urewera National Park: Analysis of (Re)Creation Discourses in Godzone (Aotearoa/New Zealand)

Abstract

Throughout the world, there are many struggles over resource definition and use; Te Urewera National Park within the North Island of New Zealand is a site of such contestation. Currently the Maori of this region are struggling to regain ownership of the park lands through the Waitangi Tribunal. In the meantime, current legislation requires park management to take into account the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. This thesis is an analysis of selected texts about the aforementioned park. In it I examine the underlying ideologies of recent management plans and compare them with colonial era literature about the region as well as dominant discursive trends that have emerged from Europe. This study demonstrates different means by which the management plans reflect colonial ways of thinking about nature as separate from culture. I argue that until these persistent colonial attitudes are carefully examined, colonial injustices will never be resolved.