photography, NZ$1500  

Hidden behind the saw-tooth ridge of the Remarkables, near Queenstown, the Nevis Valley is one of Otago's historic and landscape treasures. In the last decades of the 1800s, however, this isolated, raw valley was home to nearly 600 gold diggers and their families, several hotels, a school, and in contrast with today's pervading silence, the incessant clang and metallic grinding of gold dredges. Few signs of that hardy community remain today. Through the valley's centre runs the Nevis River, the last remaining river of any size in Central Otago not to be modified for either hydro or irrigation schemes. Not for long, sadly: Pioneer Generation (owned by the Central Lakes Trust) has purchased the two major high country runs which occupy the valley, and have signaled their intention to apply for consents to dam the Nevis for hydro generation. The low lands in this photograph will be flooded, if Pioneer Generation gets its way. The last remaining unspoiled river, and this beautiful valley, will be lost forever.