An initial study into New Zealander's perceptions of vegetated landscapes in rural areas

Abstract

This project was undertaken to examine how people in the North Island of New Zealand might evaluate a variety of rural and agricultural landscapes and the criteria that they used to make their assessment. Between November 2004 and March 2005 a convenience sample of 50 people were interviewed from around the Waikato, Auckland and Bay of Plenty. The interviewers asked people to sort and discuss 54 photos of natural landscapes containing a range of vegetation types. All the photos were standardised to a similar composition to assist in the comparisons. Each person being interviewed was asked to sort the photographs into categories reflecting their own criteria and then explain the categories. They were then asked to identify their most and least preferred categories. The most preferred vegetation types were the indigenous forest types which were considered "inspiring" and "attractive". Well grazed grasslands were moderately preferred as being "natural" and "well managed". Cropped areas were disliked by some people for being "over controlled". The least preferred were gorse blocks and regenerating scrubland which were considered "ugly" and "messy". Keywords: landscape, policy, ecology