Colonising Goats in Aotearoa
- biordinary
- Aug 29, 2024
- 7 min read
Gabriel Lennon
Ordinary Place
I focus on pasturelands in Aotearoa, landscapes that are quintessentially ‘ordinary’ in the sense that they are regarded as unexceptional as the near-dominant landscape form across the islands. They are heavily modified by people – farmers, agrologists, agro-ecologists, etc. – but also by animals that are supposedly ‘ordinary’: cattle, sheep, goats, and other livestock. They stand in contradistinction to the extraordinary sites of ecological conservation and restoration – warded peninsulas, urban eco-sanctuaries, volcanic peaks, or verdant rainforests. These are nominally places of intrigue, exceptions to the pastoral and urban rule, where one might experience something environmentally other, while pasturelands represent the opposite: they are rigid and repetitive landscapes that are thoroughly known, even at a distance, and whose inhabitants are well-worn characters. Cattle, sheep, and goats – my particular focus – are indeed felt to be understood and uninteresting creatures: Sheep are synonymous with lacking will or agency; cattle are considered vacuous vessels, synonymous with stupidity; and goats, while understood as wily and cheeky, do not fare much better. Pasturelands, in essence, have a quotidian ecology, barely registering as an ecology to many, and their inhabitant’s ordinariness is such that there is little interest in their differences and particular histories, nor what these animals’ interiority might be – necessary considerations if one wants to alter course.
This taken-for-granted nature of pastoralism is what I seek to unravel and interrogate to tease out the contingencies and differences, and thus possibilities, that exist in this socio-ecological realm. Instead of regarding pastoral farms as a mundane, quintessential ‘place’ in Aotearoa, I want to move past this perception of mundanity that works to ossify this situation and try to see and elaborate on the dynamism within this socio-ecological and more-than-human matrix.
Mobile Species
It is a bovid congregation that I am focusing on: cattle (bovine), sheep (ovine), and goats (caprine). Even to list them in this way conceals a greater diversity within these ‘kinds’ – the breeds that complicate the species-category, the multi-species interactions below the species threshold that impact behaviour – but these three species form the bedrock of a pastoral assemblage, alongside their companions like farmers and agrologists, and the grass and plants, insects, and chemicals that sustain this agro-ecological mode (each of these ‘kinds’ also complex and heterogenous within and between themselves). Their mobility has for the most part hinged on humans, as they were taken on the trans-Oceanic voyages by European colonialists. Sheep and goats came first, ‘liberated’ by James Cook on his second voyage in 1773, and gradually spreading from there through feral and domesticated modes, and cattle later, coming with Samuel Marsden in the first settlement in 1815. They spread with settlers, and with Māori who also began to rear them, aided and abetted by increased shipments of different breeds. Although these species are now thoroughly established, with the ‘national flock’ sitting at around twenty-five million sheep, and the ‘national herd’ at ten million cattle (goats are distinct due to their feral population, but it is likely a few hundred thousand), mobility continues: livestock are imported for their genetic value to farmers, and there is a rich trade in embryos and biological material.
Yet, their mobility is not solely determined by people. Goats initially spread as a feral population, and today their mobility is a headache for environmentalists as a cheeky pest, prolific across the islands. Cattle and sheep, while more tied to pasture, still go wandering, and are then hunted (though neither compose large feral populations). This wandering presents part of the dilemma, albeit a slightly more minor one; an example of pastoralism’s excess beyond the bounded realm of the farm.
Biodiversity Dilemma
There are stark lines of enmity in the environment in Aotearoa, at least by the ecologists’ telling. There is a medley of invasive species, predominantly mammalian, that have decimated and continue to harm ‘native’ flora and fauna – a situation that is incredibly stark because of Aotearoa’s comparatively delicate and strange ecological configuration. Having been secluded for many thousand millennia with a near complete absence of terrestrial mammals, there evolved an abundance of very particular reptiles, insects, and birds. These adapted to niches elsewhere occupied by mammals, like large grazers and cunning scavengers, leading to many unique species, but the more severe and pertinent consequence was that these species adapted to an environment where predation came from above in the form of raptors, rather than from the understory, so many birds gradually became flightless and animals were unused to defending their nests from prying carnivores. In 1300AD, Polynesian settlement interrupted this, bringing a modest three mammals: people, rats, and dogs, and this indeed caused drastic environmental change in the form of extinctions and deforestation. With Europeans, however, their imperial expansion wrought gargantuan change, with an influx of species often picked for their ability to act as vectors for their terraforming project, radically altering the landscape and biological diversity. Mustelids, hedgehogs, possums, cats, and rats are their contributions, with these species and their effects now constituting the orthodox account of the present biodiversity dilemma where these particular birds and bugs face a continual, existential threat from mammalian pests.
However, there are the other European introductions of cattle, sheep, and goats, and these are also an integral part of this dilemma, as pastoralism’s mode of land use and the effluence from this are the predominant cause of the environmental changes, with over a third of all land converted to pasture. This is clearly significant, but it is not limited to this, as pastoral systems leak with excess: the methanic flatulence of cattle has atmospheric effects, their excretions seeps into riverways and lakes, and the effluence of the pastoralism as an industrial form all work to seriously alter and damage environments, and, thus, change the ecologies which these precarious species depend upon. This is the salient biodiversity dilemma: the balance between pastoralism as a sector, and care for the wider ecology.
Actors in Play
There is a wide array of involved groups in a dilemma of such scale as pastoralism and its place in the wider socio-ecological milieu. The ones here are more or less delimited to the particular site of the research: Taranaki, Waikato, and Manawatū, the three regions in the mid-western part of Te Ika-a-Māui (North Island), but due to the wide remit of the inquiry the net is cast wide. These, too, are the groups involved in the wider problematic at hand rather than specific organisations as the ethnographic work has not been concluded. These include:
Farmers: a diverse category inclusive of private farmers in and outside of larger co-operatives, to those in iwi-owned communally-held farms, organic and industrial farms, and other pastoral enterprises. This also includes breeders associations and farming societies organised around particular breeds of livestock or modes of pastoralism.
Environmentalists and conservationists: another diverse category that includes organisations at official state and regional level, and para-state and non-state groups and initiatives.
Flora and fauna: humans are not the only actors in this matrix, as the bovids themselves as well as the array of other involved species pursue distinct agendas, however seemingly opaque to the human observer.
Ecologists, agronomists, and other scientists: these are ofttimes further from the labour on the farms themselves, but are involved in directing breeding programmes, designing and innovating technologies and techniques for pastoralists, and reporting on the state of farms. There is also a wide range of state and private groups that work in this issue.
Hunters: hunters are present across the boundaries of farms and conservation site, and have an ambiguous position in this matrix, both hunting invasive species (such as goats), but also benefitting from these species’ presence.
It is necessary to underline these categories are not mutually exclusive: there is significant overlap between these divisions. It is also unclear at this early stage of research who the precise involved groups are and the depths of their involvement – this will be clarified and developed over the course of ethnographic fieldwork.
History
Taranaki, Waikato, and Manawatū have their particular histories, but pastoralism here has generally taken a form somewhat distinct from other regions (i.e., Northland, Canterbury) due to the intensity and violence of the colonial conflicts, where the bovids and pastoralism were spread inland through the musket’s barrel. It was in these locations were some of the most heinous episodes of imperial expansion took place during the New Zealand Wars (1845-72) where the settler government killed and expelled Māori, with mass ‘confiscations’ of land being converted into pasture and farmland for newly-arrived settlers. This undercut and destroyed the novel agro-ecological systems Māori were developing with new species that were introduced, with orchards, agriculture, and hunting (as well as livestock rearing) razed in favour of a particular pastoral mode. Indeed, these colonial soldiers were enticed to enlist with the promise of land, rendering these bovids the potent companion species of colonialism that conditioned the process of appropriation and violence.
These species’ place is still contested, particularly in these areas – it is the formulation of different modalities of farming and thus different interrelationships with these species that are dynamic and changing. This also happens in a wider context of socio-political change in the area, where innovative moves have been made to acknowledge the personhood of particular sites, large settlements of colonial-era grievances are underway, and increasingly powerful iwi are able to articulate new forms of pastoralism. Yet, this goes alongside the dominance of industrialised dairying and pastoralism that is predominantly practiced by Pākehā (those of European descent) with reasonably little regulation (concerning the environment) – an afterlife of empire. It is this ongoing contestation and the wide possibilities for change that makes it such a rich site for these questions of how life can be encouraged to flourish outside cordoned-off reserves and sanctuaries, and this potent connection to colonialism makes pastoralism a necessary subject to interrogate in inventive ways so as to meaningfully understand and address imperial legacies.
Future
This has been dynamic history, and the future portends the same: increasingly, pastoralism finds itself in a precarious position as the pressure of climatic change and environmental damage increasingly brings to the fore questions of what can be done to protect species and environments, and its economic hegemony is faltering slightly. There is also the wider postcolonial debate, wherein these ecological problematics at the heart of the pastoral mode are central to discussions of redress and justice that, alongside concerns around anthropogenic climatic change, puts farming increasingly under pressure. Yet, for the foreseeable future the islands will remain a ‘protein factory’ with livestock farming the predominant industry of the islands – and it is indeed industrial, despite its pastoral sheen, as diary factories for milk processing, large abattoirs, and a proliferation of agronomic and animal science labs are all parts of this assemblage. Thus, it is unlikely there will be some clean transcendence, but there is a proliferation of experimental and emboldened efforts that challenge farming orthodoxies that, perhaps, offer alternative socio-ecological politics that can be better attuned to the needs of diverse lives and foster some greater conviviality.
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