Mountain Spirit's Blog

Half a Million Hectares, Sold
From Stuff.co.nz
New Zealanders have paid $65m to get rid of some of our most treasured landscapes, through an obscure process critics have described as a vast wave of privatization. Wealthy foreigners are snapping up valuable land once owned by the public, who in some cases paid to dispose of it. As gated estates and manicured golf courses spread through our wild places,  Charlie Mitchell investigates for Stuff.co.nz: Who owns the high country? Read more here…

Not far from the site of a new development for the very wealthy, golf course included. Here’s a shot prior to all that.

Editor’s Note: A bit of disclosure – My wife is South African, and I’m a Yank, and we bought an existing house and small bit of land in Hawea. So I’m guilty by association only in that I’m American. I believe in living lightly. We have an off-the-grid home and retreat centre, with gravity fed water and a small house. The scale and rate at which foreigners are snapping up New Zealand’s high country is appalling, and appears to be changing the very values of the country, by gentrification.

Tags: Alpha Burn, Charlie Mitchell, Conservation, Craig Heatley, Damper Bay, Julian Haworth, Lake Wanaka, New ZEaland Land Development, Overdevelopment, Peter Thiel, Second Star Ltd, Stuff.co.nz, Upper Clutha Environmental Society, Wanaka

This entry was posted on 22/01/2019 at 05:43 and is filed under Conservation, Environment, Holistic Living, Power of Place, Room For Improvement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.