TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction James Beattie 1 Eric Pawson: An appreciation of a New Zealand career Graeme Wynn 5 Eric Pawson: Research collaborator and facilitator Peter Holland 13 Eric Pawson: The ultimate co-author Tom Brooking 17 De-extinction and representation: Perspectives from art history, museology, and the Anthropocene Rosie Ibbotson 21 Cultivating the cultural memory of Ranunculus paucifolius T. Kirk, a South Island subalpine buttercup Joanna Cobley 43 Imaginary sea monsters and real environmental threats: Reconsidering the famous Osborne, ‘Moha-moha’, Valhalla, and ‘Soay beast’ sightings of unidentified marine objects R. L. France 63 Regarding New Zealand’s environment: The anxieties of Thomas Potts, c. 1868–88 Paul Star 101 The chronology of a sad historical misjudgement: The introductions of rabbits and ferrets in nineteenth-century New Zealand Carolyn M. King 139 Seeing scenic New Zealand: W. W. Smith’s eye and the Scenery Preservation Commission, 1904–06 Michael Roche 175 International Review of Environmental History is published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is available online at press.anu.edu.au ISSN 2205-3204 (print) ISSN 2205-3212 (online) Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover image: J. G. Keulemans, female (back) and male (front) huia, in Walter Buller, A history of the birds of New Zealand, 2nd ed. (London: The author, 1888). Bib#104983. Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury. Photograph courtesy of the Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury; image in the public domain. © 2017 ANU Press Editor: James Beattie, History, University of Waikato & Research Associate, Centre for Environmental History, The Australian National University Associate Editors: Brett M. Bennett, University of Western Sydney Andrea Gaynor, University of Western Australia Rebecca Priestley, Victoria University of Wellington Editorial Board: • Eugene N. Anderson, University of California, • Tom Isern, North Dakota State University Riverside • Nancy Jacobs, Brown University • Maohong Bao 包茂宏, Peking University • Ryan Tucker Jones, Oregon State University • Greg Barton, University of Western Sydney • Peter Lavelle, Temple University • Tom Brooking, University of Otago • Joseph Lawson, Newcastle University • Nicholas Brown, Australian National University • Robert B. Marks, Whittier College • Richard Bullen, University of Canterbury • Edward Melillo, Amherst College • Matthew Chew, Arizona State University • Ruth Morgan, Monash University • Gregory T. Cushman, University of Kansas • Emily O’Gorman, Macquarie University • Vinita Damodaran, University of Sussex • Hiroki Oikawa 及川敬貴, Yokohama • Rohan D’Souza, Jawaharlal Nehru University National University • Sonja Duempelmann, Harvard University • José Pádua, Federal University of Rio • James R. Fleming, Colby College • Eric Pawson, University of Canterbury • Guorong Gao 高国荣, Chinese Academy • Ulrike Plath, University of Tallinn of Social Sciences • Simon Pooley, Imperial College London • Andrea Gaynor, University of Western • Libby Robin, Australian National University Australia • Fei Sheng 费晟, Sun Yat-Sen University • Tom Griffiths, Australian National University • Lance van Sittert, University of Cape Town • Eugenia Herbert, Mount Holyoke College • Paul Star, University of Waikato • Peter Holland, University of Otago • Sandra Swart, Stellenbosch University • Katie Holmes, La Trobe University • Mei Xueqin 梅雪芹, Tsinghua University • Adrian Howkins, Colorado State University International Review of Environmental History is published with the support of the Centre for Environmental History, The Australian National University: ceh.environmentalhistory-au-nz.org/about. It is also supported by the Historical Research Unit: www.waikato.ac.nz/fass/study/subjects/history/available-papers; Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences; and the Environmental Research Institute: www.waikato.ac.nz/eri, University of Waikato, New Zealand. About the Journal International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history. It publishes on all thematic and geographical topics of environmental history, but especially encourages articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’. This includes but is not limited to Australasia, East and South East Asia, Africa, and South America. International Review of Environmental History’s editorial board includes historians, scientists, and geographers who work on environmental history and the related disciplines of garden history and landscape studies. This methodological breadth distinguishes International Review of Environmental History from other environmental history journals, as does its attempt to draw together cognate research areas in garden history and landscape studies. The journal’s goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. We encourage scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and timescales. We embrace interdisciplinary, comparative, and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes. The Centre for Environmental History at The Australian National University sponsors the journal, and ANU Press will publish hard copy and free electronic versions of the journal. It is also supported by the Historical Research Unit, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Environmental Research Institute of the www.waikato.ac.nz/eri University of Waikato, New Zealand. Our open-access policy means that articles will be available free to scholars around the world, ensuring high citation rates and impact in and beyond the field of history. International Review of Environmental History is happy to consider future special issues focusing on themes drawn from conferences or collaborations. Submission Details Please send article submissions or abstracts to the Editor, Professor James Beattie, History, University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand. Email: [email protected]. Abstracts should be no more than 200 words, and include a list of keywords. Articles should be in the range 5,000 to 8,000 words (including footnotes), although longer submissions may be considered after consultation with the editors. Style and referencing: please use footnotes in Chicago Style, and follow British spelling. For more details on Chicago Style, please see: www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. INTRODUCTION JAMES BEATTIE History Programme, University of Waikato & Research Associate Centre for Environmental History, The Australian National University I’m delighted to introduce the first issue of the third volume of International Review of Environmental History. This is dedicated to the geographer Eric Pawson, who in April 2017 retired from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, after an illustrious career of more than 40 years. Eric’s contribution as a teacher and supervisor, public intellectual, research collaborator, and researcher is addressed by the first three contributions to this issue: by the historical geographer Graeme Wynn, Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia; the biogeographer Peter Holland, Professor Emeritus, University of Otago; and the environmental historian Tom Brooking, Professor of History, University of Otago. Eric’s broad interests are reflected—and shared—by the articles in this issue. They demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary research, of subjecting scientific ideas to the scrutiny of social science and the arts and of subjecting historical evidence to the scrutiny of scientific theory. They examine attitudes to environmental change, trace early conservation measures, interrogate changing boundaries between science and non-science, and investigate the impact of introduced species—issues close to Eric’s own research. Several of the articles also trace environmental change in Eric’s adopted province of Canterbury, New Zealand. And, in being drawn from scholars working in biology, art history, ecology, environmental history, and historical geography, the contributions to this issue trace in tangible form Eric’s path-breaking interdisciplinary collaboration and research which has laid the groundwork for a journal of this nature. The first article, by Rosie Ibbotson, ‘De-extinction and representation: Perspectives from art history, museology, and the Anthropocene’, illustrates the contribution that art history and museum studies can make to de-extinction. Ibbotson uses the case study of portrayals of the extinct huia (Heteralocha acutirostris) to unpick broader issues about de-extinction, notably the often uncritical use of representations of extinct animals to inform attempts to recreate these animals. She also highlights the ambiguous role of the museum as ‘an institution in which contested practices such as collecting, curating, conserving, and canon formation 1 International Review of Environmental History • Volume 3, Issue 1, 2017 echo debates and processes within ecology management, including those surrounding de-extinction’. For Ibbotson, museums are ‘an analogy for—and an engine of— genetic rescue and the Anthropocene.’ The second article also examines a single species, in this case a nearly extinct buttercup (Ranunculus paucifolius T. Kirk), to debate issues around conservation and human–nature interactions. In ‘Cultivating