In 1952, a returned serviceman, Bill Pearson, who had grown up on the West Coast of the South Island, raised what he saw as the indifference of New Zealanders, especially farmers, to the beauty of their country and their lack of stewardship over their land. With its riches in coal, gold and forestry and its deep but often problematic alluvial soils, the West Coast was to become a major battleground for the nation’s emerging conservation ethic. Today the worst fears of many Coasters – that the rain forests would be ‘locked up’ as parks, reserves and protected forest – have been realised. In the decade since 2004 jobs in the forestry industry have fallen – from over 500 to about six.