Abstract
Nineteenth-century photographs from the Broken River and Porters Pass area along State Highway 73 (Christchurch to Arthur's Pass) are compared with recent photographs of the same sites. On four pairs, small increases and decreases in vegetation cover can be detected; these were assessed by use of a grid overlay. Photo-pairs showed that most of the erosion scars evident today were present early in the period of European settlement. If farm management in the last 130 years had led to a consistent trend of change in area of bare ground and vegetation cover, a consistent improvement or deterioration might be expected, but no marked or consistent pattern was observed.

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