Changing Rural Land Use In New Zealand 1997 To 2008

This paper is a current draft of my Honours research project, and looks into whether changing economic variables have any predictive power on changing rural land use in recent years. To do this I attempt to answer three questions: 1. Do recent commodity prices have any predictive power on land use conversions? 2. Is recently sold land more likely to change use? 3. Does land which is marginal between uses have identifiable characteristics? I present my preliminary findings, which suggest land sales as a good indicator of land use change.