Preferences for Land Use Options Involving Forestry

The Resource Management Act 1991 emphasises the importance of assessing the potential environmental effects of land-use change. Forestry is a potential land-use in the Mackenzie/Waitaki Basin but its effects are not acceptable to everyone. The preferences of stakeholders were investigated for different land-use options involving forestry. Using a "Q sort " technique, stakeholders expressed preferences for cards that presented environmental effects of a range of technically feasible land-use options, including forestry, agriculture, and conservation. Several indicators of the environmental effects for each land-use option were modelled, such as the visual effects of land-use regimes and consequential impacts such as wilding spread, and the non-visual environmental effects such as local income and employment and soil status. Seventy-seven respondents rated a total of 36 cards covering four landforms. Analysis of the results identified several clear "themes", or sets of preferences, characterised by a distinctive set of preferred land-use options, and a distinctive combination of effects. Each theme has specific criteria for judging acceptability. These preferences have possible implications for planning involving forestry under the Resource Management Act 1991