Forgetting and Remembering: Kenneth Cumberland and Soil Erosion in New Zealand, 1940s to 2020s

The speed and scale of landscape transformation in New Zealand was almost immediately apparent to British geographer Kenneth Cumberland on his appointment to Canterbury University College in 1938. His efforts culminated in the nationally and internationally well‐regarded book ‘Soil Erosion in New Zealand: A Geographical Reconnaissance (1944a)’, which paired with his significant public advocacy for reform contributed to the passage of the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Act, 1941 and was followed by research into high country land management for the North Canterbury Catchment Board. Over the last half century, Cumberlanda's understanding of soil erosion and soil conservation has in various ways been a ‘forgotten’. With environmental historians and others pointing to how the past can help understand current environmental hazards, the loss of Cumberland's insights is at best unfortunate. This situation also suggests that some attention ought to be paid to understanding how ‘forgetting’ takes place. Using Cumberland as a case in point Baez Ullberg's (2018) ideas are deployed to appreciate how modernity, and by extension neo‐liberalism, encourages and requires ‘forgetting’.