Evaluating indigenous forest restoration design strategies in support of biodiversity and pastoral farmers in marginal hill country, Aotearoa New Zealand : A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Landscape Architecture. at Lincoln University

Abstract

Strategically reforesting marginal hill country with indigenous forest is a recognised way to aid in decelerating and reversing the dual climate and biodiversity crisis in Aotearoa New Zealand, with the potential to provide income to farmers simultaneously. Farm owners are needed to assist in reforestation if it is to occur on a significant scale; however, there is a need for further contributions about what spatial reforestation strategies are effective in concurrently meeting biodiversity and farm owner requirements on marginal hill country land. A narrative literature review was conducted to identify bush bird, lizard and insect wildlife guild and farm owner requirements to establish evaluation criteria. Wildlife guilds require appropriate spatial configurations of habitat size, connectivity and resources. Farm owners require restoration strategies that are low cost, easy to implement, easy to maintain, and timely (particularly to generate income through carbon sequestration under the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS)). Attributes that lead to these restoration outcomes were also identified as important in evaluating and defining strategy effectiveness measures. These criteria were then applied through a literature review to critically evaluate the effectiveness of existing hill country restoration establishment methods and spatial configuration strategies New Zealand wide. The results indicate that none of the existing strategies meet all criteria for a high level of effectiveness. A third narrative literature review identified design solutions to create an improved strategy through the realm of landscape ecology and landscape networks. The novel hill country restoration strategy was designed by combining principles of the patch-corridor-matrix theory, spatial eligibility criteria for the ETS and strengths of existing strategies. When analysed using the evaluation criteria, the novel strategy met all criteria effectively. However, only biodiversity interaction and ability to receive NZUs criteria were met to high effectiveness, with the cost of establishment, ease of establishment and cost/ease of maintenance only being averagely effective. These results indicate there is a substantial need for improvement of policy and development of on-the-ground restoration strategies, to assist both farm owners and resulting biodiversity in restoring marginal hill country land, in answer to the increasingly urgent dual biodiversity and climate crises we are facing.