NELSON REGION

NELSON REGION

by Samuel Harvey Franklin, B.COM.GEOG., M.A.(BIRMINGHAM), Senior Lecturer, Geography Department, Victoria University of Wellington.

NELSON REGION

The Nelson region is located at the north-western end of the South Island between Tasman Bay in the east and Golden Bay in the west and could be contained within a square 50 by 50 miles, the major portion of its western part being mountainous and inaccessible. In extent the region corresponds to the limits of Waimea county and Golden Bay county, which has incorporated the former counties of Takaka and Collingwood. Nelson (urban area population, 25,321, 1961) is the principal city of the region, which contained in 1961 a total population of 48,538 (2 per cent of the New Zealand total population) of which 1·81 per cent were registered as Maoris.

Landscape Pattern

Two characteristics of the Nelson region, diversity of landscapes and isolation, contend for first place in the discussion. The rapid alternation from valley to mountain, from intensive close-packed farming areas to rough grazing, or forest and desolation, from densely populated to uninhabited areas – these are the changes rung for the traveller as he emerges from the hill country to reach Nelson or as he climbs the road leading from Motueka and Riwaka across the bleak pass to Takaka. The isolation of the region is the characteristic borne upon the mind of the visitor when he enters or leaves the district.

Massive blocks of hill country and mountain composed of greywacke and later rocks, volcanic series, but principally of granites and schists, are separated by huge faults from low-lying alluvium-filled plains, extensive, like the one laid down by the Wairoa and Motueka Rivers, or small, like the ones around Takaka and Collingwood. The mountains rise to 5,000 ft, to 6,153 ft in Mount Owen, in the remoter parts; between Golden Bay and Tasman Bay they rise to 3,722 ft and reach over 4,000 ft above the Motueka Valley. These altitudes give some impression of the asperity of the landforms. The economic value of the ranges is negligible; for the most part they remain in native bush or tussock and only on limited fringe areas are they used exclusively for pastoral purposes. The force of the Cobb River has been tapped to produce hydro-electricity, installed capacity 32,000 kW, although it is indicative of the slow development of the area that the station did not come into production until 1944. Small amounts of economically useful minerals are obtained from the more accessible areas – asbestos, 572 tons maximum production, clays, 8,000 tons; dolomite, 3,390 tons; limestone, 20,253 tons; serpentine, 35,449 tons – the annual value of mineral production is approximately £200,000. This activity is important to the local economy and contributes a little towards saving overseas exchange. In addition 20,925 tons of coal, representing 0·66 per cent of the national production, were mined at Collingwood and near Murchison in 1960. The region is one of the main mineraliferous zones of the Dominion and hopes are naturally concentrated here, especially, because of the rather undiversified structure of the local economy. But even though the stage of geological mapping is primitive, the prospect of discovering important deposits is authoritatively discounted.

The valleys and lower-lying areas contain almost the whole of the region's population, but, even within the valleys, marked concentrations of settlement occur beside areas of much lower densities. This is particularly true of Waimea county, where the intensively farmed areas around Richmond and Motueka contrast with the sparsely settled lands of the Moutere gravels. These Pleistocene gravels cover some 135,000 acres in Waimea county (they continued further south to Lake Rotoiti and the Hope Saddle) and extend as a band of country some 12 miles broad through the centre of the county, from Tophouse and Glenhope in the south, at an altitude of over 2,000 ft, to Tasman and Mapua on the coast. They can be visualised as a surface sloping towards Tasman Bay, which represents the bed of some ancient river system, now dissected by the rivers Wairoa, Wai-iti, Motueka, and their tributaries. Their notoriety derives from the leached soil, poor in organic material, which makes farming difficult, so that their farming history has been marked by some conspicuous failures; failures attested to by the deteriorated quality of the pastures over large areas and the decline in carrying capacity, the increase of erosion, and the conversion of much of the land to plantations of exotic conifers of which the State plantation at Golden Downs is the largest (net area planted, 29,292 acres). Of the total acreage of the gravels located in Waimea county, it was calculated in 1952 that 30 per cent was under native or exotic timber, 25 per cent was in partly reverted pasture, the degree of reversion varying from slight to bad, and another 25 per cent was in pasture which had fully reverted to bracken and second growth. A mere 14 per cent was classified as improved pasture and cultivated area. As this land occupies a third of Waimea county's area, its deterioration could not be ignored and, in the post-war period, much consideration has been given to its improved use and potentialities. With the right type of management and with finance made available some measure of success has already been obtained. The most successful adaptation to the gravels has been made in the coastal regions where, largely since the First World War, orchards have been established over some 2,500 acres of land. This section of the Moutere gravels is best considered, however, as part of the localised and densely settled special-crop district of Waimea county.

Specialised Crops

These special-crop areas are responsible for the most original landscapes of the region, the principal elements being the tobacco-curing houses, the fields of tobacco themselves, the trellises of the hop vines, the hipped roofs of the hop kilns, and the wire-mesh appearance of the orchards seen from the air. These landscapes, combined with the more usual landscapes of sheep and dairying areas, create a sense of intense cultivation and productivity. Approximately 11,000 acres are devoted to specialised crops, two-thirds of this area lying in the Motueka-Moutere district and a little less than one-third in the vicinity of the lower Wai-iti Valley. A very small acreage of specialised crops, about 150 acres, lies in the middle reaches of the Motueka Valley near Tapawera. Tobacco and pip fruits, apples especially, occupy the greatest area, with vegetables and peas, hops, stone fruits, and small fruits following in that order of importance. In 1960, 4,151 acres were devoted to the production of tobacco, the growers being protected by a regulation which obliges tobacco manufacturers in New Zealand to use a minimum proportion of New Zealand grown leaf; 3,500 acres were under apple and pear trees, the region containing 28 per cent of all New Zealand apple trees and 37 per cent of all pear trees. In the period 1950–60 the number of cases of apples and pears exported has risen from 676,518 to 1,120,257. A remarkable increase has occurred recently in the production of vegetables for marketing and processing. In 1951–52 only 412 acres were under vegetables, but by 1960–61 this figure had risen to 3,097 acres. The principal crops are peas, followed by tomatoes, which are grown also in the numerous glasshouses extending over an area of approximately one and a half million square feet. All of the Dominion's commercial hop gardens are now located in Waimea county and, in 1960, 589 acres were under cultivation for hops. Much of the region's industrial activity is associated with the initial processing and packaging of these products, but the cigarette-manufacturing plants and breweries are located largely outside the region. The seasonal inflow of temporary labour, over 2,000 persons each summer, copes with the heavy demands for labour during the harvest period. These special-crop economies are very favoured by the climate of the region. Nelson records one of the highest number of hours of sunshine per year, 2,430. The average annual rainfall is 35·9 in. spread over 152 days. The mean daily maximum temperature in January is 70·4°F and in July 53·3°F.

The economy of the region is shown by the bill of cargoes for Nelson's port. Two principal items are listed: 44,855 tons of fresh fruit, 24,363 tons of timber. For the port of Motueka, which engages only in coastal traffic, the pattern is the same: 11,787 tons of fresh fruit, 5,310 tons of timber. By comparison the exports of wool, frozen meat, butter, and milk products are negligible. The list of inwards cargo for Nelson is dominated by motor spirits and oils. In 1964 the port of Nelson handled 292,677 tons of goods.

Mineral Resources

Other concentrations of population are located in the valleys of the Takaka and the Aorere Rivers, which flow into Golden Bay. These are principally dairying areas and their history follows a well-established pattern of development. The first pioneers arrived in the Takaka area in 1845, three years after the initial settlement of Nelson. The stimulus to the development of the Aorere Valley arose from the discovery of gold in 1857, and Collingwood experienced a brief period of growth and prominence as the principal outlet of the region. The interest in the potentialities of the area's mineral resources has persisted throughout the decades. Deposits of alluvial and lode gold were worked intermittently in the West Haven (Whanganui Inlet) area throughout the latter part of the last century; and small coalfields were exploited at Puponga and North Cape. Perhaps the greatest hopes were placed upon the development of the Onekaka iron ores, but the most substantial development has been achieved with the expansion of the cement works at Tarakohe to a capacity of 300,000 tons, only half of which is used at present. The cement is distributed by a fast motor vessel to installations at Wellington, Wanganui, and New Plymouth. The exploitation of the timber resources was a useful source of income during the early period of settlement, but at present the economy rests substantially upon sheep farming and particularly dairying, as is borne out by the ratio of cows in milk per hundred sheep shorn for Golden Bay county, 12·42. The trend displayed by the population figures for Golden Bay county indicates the restricted basis of economic activity in the valleys to which difficulties of access are a contributing factor. In 1926 the population totalled 3,049. By 1951 it had risen to 3,819 and, at the next census, 1956, rose to 4,057. Following the completion of the Cobb Dam and the expansion of the limeworks the population in 1961 had declined to 3,672. Nevertheless, the number of cows in milk has increased by 8·77 per cent and the Department of Agriculture estimates a further 40-per-cent increase by 1980. Significantly, in the period 1951–52 to 1959–60, the increase in sheep shorn and lambs shorn was below the regional level of increase, which itself was below the national level.

The population of the region as a whole has continued to increase. It numbered 25,564 in 1926, 44,153 in 1956, and 48,538 in 1961. During the last decade (1951–61), however, the rate of increase, 19·98 per cent, has been well below the national rate of increase and the increase has been concentrated in the urban areas which grew by 44·65 per cent, whereas the rural population declined by 7·35 per cent. Furthermore, it is striking how the proportion of the total population contained in the Nelson urban area and in the boroughs of Richmond and Motueka has continued to increase, from 57 per cent in 1926 to 66 per cent in 1961.

Two recent controversies have emphasised the long-term problems of the region. For communications the region is dependent upon its road connections with Picton and Blenheim and the rather difficult route of the Buller Gorge via Murchison to the West Coast. Regular steamer services with Wellington were discontinued in 1953, although coastal and overseas vessels call at Nelson. From that date travel to Wellington was restricted to the airlines or by road to Picton and thence by ferry. The railroad between Nelson and Glenhope, owing to an insufficient volume of traffic, was finally closed in 1955 and the faint hope of its ever being connected by rail to the West Coast was destroyed. The Labour administration of 1957–60 promised the construction of a rail link between Picton and Nelson at a cost of approximately £1 million. Although the route was surveyed, the ensuing controversy and a change of government led to the demise of the scheme. The action of the same Labour Government in selecting Nelson as the site for a large modern cotton-spinning mill again aroused considerable controversy, which resulted in the abandonment of the scheme.

Statistics of the Nelson Region

Urban Population
Town 1911 1936 1951 1961 1961 Maoris
Nelson 8,051 12,076 16,829 23,971 280
Richmond 703 1,138 1,973 3,482 15
Motueka 1,229 2,169 2,464 3,310 72
Total 9,983 15,383 21,266 30,763 367
Land Occupation
County Average Area of Holdings 1960 Area Occupied 1960
acres acres
Golden Bay 596 218,080
Waimea 376 567,712
County Population
County 1911 1936 1951 1961 1961 Maoris
Golden Bay 3,026 3,516 3,819 3,672 39
Waimea 8,626 12,506 15,367 14,103 477
Total county 11,652 16,024 19,186 17,775 516
Total region 21,645 31,407 40,452 48,538 883
Cows in Milk
County Cows in Milk Dairy Cows in Milk per 100 Sheep Shorn 1960
1921–22 1951–52 1959–60
Golden Bay 5,362 9,699 10,550 12·42
Waimeas 7,086 10,200 9,834 2·96
Total 12,448 19,899 20,384 ..

Development of Industry

This abortive attempt to establish industry was a recognition of the need to widen the basis of the region's economy. 26·58 per cent of the labour force are engaged in primary industries (cf., New Zealand, 16·05), and 1791 per cent are engaged in manufacturing industries (cf., New Zealand, 26·04). In the secondary sector, food-processing industries constitute the principal source of employment, with the sawmills, joiners, boxmakers, and the vehicle repair and associated industries taking second and third places. In the period April 1953 to April 1961 the numbers engaged in manufacturing increased by 14·8 per cent, compared with the national average of 24·14 per cent, and the total labour force increased by only 7·45 per cent, compared with the national figure of 18·42 per cent. These figures, and others which are available, lead to the conclusion that the Nelson area has fallen behind the industrial development of New Zealand as a whole, but an investigation of alternative or additional industries is not encouraging. The most favoured scheme at present is the establishment of a pulp and paper industry based upon the 68,000 acres of exotic forests in Waimea county, and certainly the increasing shortage of timber supplies in the Wellington Province ought to provide the Nelson timber-milling industry with a favourable market. A 35-per-cent increase in the region's population is forecast by 1981. During the past 50 years the region has been intermittently one of out migration and in migration. Whether it will be able to sustain the projected increase depends largely on the success obtained in diversifying its economy.

In a New Zealand context the Nelson region stands out because of its specialised cropping areas. Nevertheless, its economy is a simple one based largely upon agricultural or pastoral pursuits, which provide the basis for most of its industrial activities, added to which mining, quarrying, and forestry make some minor contribution. Despite the emphasis upon primary activities the population is overwhelmingly concentrated in one centre, the principal functions being tertiary, rather than secondary. That there is further scope for increased agricultural production is unquestioned, but the factors strongly influencing these prospects are not to be found within the region but arise externally and are associated largely with market prospects. Thus, while there is a need to create jobs for the growing population, the disadvantages of Nelson's isolation will weigh heavily against the area in its attempt to attract new industries.

by Samuel Harvey Franklin, B.COM.GEOG., M.A.(BIRMINGHAM), Senior Lecturer, Geography Department, Victoria University of Wellington.

  • The Moutere Gravels – Waimea County Nelson, Nelson Catchment Board (1952)
  • N.Z. Journal of Agriculture, Vol. 91, Jul 1958, “Land Development in the Nelson District”, Scott, R. H.
  • N.Z. Geographer, Vol. 6, Oct 1950, “The Takaka Valley – North-west Nelson”, Rose, A. J.

NELSON REGION 22-Apr-09 Samuel Harvey Franklin, B.COM.GEOG., M.A.(BIRMINGHAM), Senior Lecturer, Geography Department, Victoria University of Wellington.