You know a lot more about American history than I know about New Zealand history. The Civil War was more than just a little icky, as I'm sure you know. Some people are still fighting it, albeit half-heartedly. Reenactments are common. All in good fun.
Still, I think people in vassal states (as you put it, and surely you don't include NZ in that number do you?) are mostly pretty darn glad that the USA handles the bad guys for them. Otherwise, Hitler and Tojo and their like would be calling the shots, don't you know.
I know enough about New Zealand that if I were ever forced to cross the Equator it's probably the only place I would want to go. My psyche has receptors for vegetation and topography, and I'm sure I would find it quite congenial.
Trees are surely one of God's finest creations, but I hardly understand worshiping them.
The reason I asked about the Monterey pine clone was that when I studied genetics for forestry, I learned that Monterey pine, which is nothing but scrub in California, is a splendid tree in NZ.
Your foresters have found a single genotype which outperforms all the rest by far, and have started many acres of that one single genotype. This is fine, as long as a bug or disease that craves that particular genotype stays away. If it comes, everything goes bye bye. I'm sure by now your foresters have made policy changes to deal with this potential. I hope.
I do hope NZ will not go the way of Easter island, as that would be a very great loss indeed. |
