and enjoyment of open-area land and waters by both settler and indigenous
peoples for food-gathering and recreational purposes. To indigenous first-nation
people looking out from the littoral, the ocean is perceived as a fish-food source;
for the early settler-migrants looking in upon the same shore their emotions
included delirious relief, now sanctified as hedonic sunning, swimming, lazing
and fishing for pleasure. These perceptions are reconcilable, yet they will always
be held separately.
Other public ‘interest’ issues include concern for a decline in general amenity
values resulting from mechanized farming practices, low-grade rural-residential
land settlement, exotic plantation forestry, and roadside commercialism with
attendant chaotic signage. These are the negatively perceived ‘add-ons’ which
must be linked to the also negatively perceived ‘taken aways’ in the form of the
destruction reduction and desecration of indigenous flora and fauna. Ecologically
flawed rural resource-use practices profile as clear-felled indigenous forests,
over-stocked run holdings, soil and landscape erosion and strip mineral mining.
These result in water quality impairment also associated with infusions of herbi-
cides and pesticides, surface and ground-water abstractions, poisonings from
mineral workings and fertilizer over-enrichments, and biological overloadings
resulting from excess and uncontrolled animal waste disposal and run-off, some-
times interacting to produce a synergistic outcome worse than the sum of the pol-
luting parts.
What follows are the available strictures which can be engaged to regulate
or constrain land resource holders (cross-refer also to box 5.6: Planning in
action):1 Zonings for a district or a regional territory, often designated
for purposes other than those preferred by a landowner,
whether freeholder, community land-holder or an indige-
nous (cognatic) landowner.
2 Constraints upon the use of agri-chemicals; controls for
detoxing and diluting the off-site discharge of animal wastes;
regulation of water run-off and vegetation burn-off.
3 Land-use controls emanating from local government in the
style of by-laws for proscribing the pattern of land uses
which is to be practised; and in a format which protects
against water-table, soil, aesthetic, noise and air pollution.
4 As-of-right easements for public utilities dug into land and
passing over it, subject to due consultation and compensa-
tion for ‘takings’.
5 Sub-leasing, licensing and letting agreements for the appli-
cation of wider public controls.
6 The fixing of land prices and land rents – generally unwork-
able, and now usually unthinkable.
7 Expropriation of land; ‘eminent domain’ the ‘taking’ rights of the state for
alienating land for functional public purposes.
8 Acquisition of land on the open market for public use and enjoyment.154 Practice
Development levies,
intended to benefit a
community, are often
unfair and frequently
cause worthwhile
proposals to go
somewhere else.
Forward payments,
demanded as a share of
the cost of providing
collector roads and
trunk utilities, often
profiles as an inflated
demand; again a situation
where the local
governing body should
take care to adhere
specifically to planning
principle.