Ahh, Central Otago. Iconic landscape, tussock grass, man on a horse, big sky, iconic landscape ... Anyway you get the general idea.
A place of enormous emptiness and grass, with a lot of rocks. But wait, what is this set to wreak havoc?
Why, it is the nemesis of the high country, the conifer from hell. I give you the wilding pine.
Much has been written by the great and the good about how this menace must be defeated; plans have been made and schemes hatched.
However, they all boil down to two salient facts: defeating them is going to take a lot of effort and a lot of money.
Still, "something must be done" and the populace sharpen their pitchforks, light their torches and set off to storm the pine-smelling castle.
But should they?
The problem with the tussock plains is that they are not really timeless, nor should they even exist in this location.
Formed by burning off native forest, Mother Nature is constantly trying to turn them back into the forest that they used to be.
In Britain, there are many misty eyes cast over the northern heather moors, full of "Heathcliff" look-a-likes and lost Bronte sisters.
In reality, they were created by man's intervention and only continue to exist to supply grouse for posh people to shoot.
All encroaching trees are burnt off.
So, yes, by all means attempt to beat the pines back like a chainsaw-wielding Canute, but nature will have her forest back.
Much of the wailing about the loss of the brown grass comes from artists who like to paint Central Otago; you know the sort of thing, bottom half of the canvas painted brown, a few triangles in the middle for mountains and a slab of blue on top.
Their opposition to the pines is surely fuelled by a lack of dark green paint and the difficulty in painting pine needles.
Wait, I hear you cry, what about the loss of habitat for the animals?
Surely you cannot mean to dispossess some skinks, a passing falcon, and the odd spider and throw them on to the scrap heap?
Well, no, but let's be clear, it's not exactly a safari park out there, and we could set up more easily defendable areas for these creatures.
Since we are imagining welcoming our new coniferous overlords, why not repopulate new forests with exciting wildlife?
Red squirrels are cute; crossbills are beautiful birds, and who wouldn't thrill to the sight of a great grey owl swooping to pluck a possum out of the branches?
Yes, the more I think about it, the greater the advantages.
A columnist the other month complained that if "something wasn't done, then Central Otago would be reduced to looking like the Rockies if we weren't careful".
Personally, I have never regarded this area of the US to be something akin to the slums of Delhi and would welcome the transformation.
Just think. "Let's go look at some brown grass" would be replaced by "Let's go feed the chipmunks"!
For the future of the region, sometimes we just have to think "outside the chocolate box".
