Kōrero: Fire and agriculture

From the 1930s there was increasing criticism of burning in tussock grasslands and high country. This 1959 clip presents the case against burning and proposes that firing the tussock, in association with overgrazing, led to mass erosion. Since the mid-1970s, scientists using evidence from pollen, botanical and landform studies have shown that high-country erosion pre-dates European settlement.