New Zealand Forest Products Mamaku reserve decision shows sensitivity to public concerns

Forest and Bird, Volume 16, Issue 2, 1 May 1985, Page 23

New Zealand Forest Products Mamaku reserve decision shows sensitivity to public concerns

Forest and Bird members throughout the Bay of Plenty-Rotorua region have welcomed the decision to reserve 1700 hectares of native forest near the Waipari-Kuhatahi stream in Mamaku State Forest near Rotorua. The Government recently announced that New Zealand Forest Products had agreed to relinquish its 1972 exotic conversion lease over 1700 hectares of Mamaku State Forest to allow the area to become an ecological reserve. This is a credit to the company’s sensitivity to public concern. Forest Products made the decision based on recommendations contained in 1983 reports by Forest and Bird on botanical values of the area and by Wildlife Service. Both these studies considered the area to be of major ecological importance. The forest contains kokako and other native wildlife. It also contains a representative sequence of the forested western fall of the Mamaku plateau, a rare stand of black beech and virgin rimu/pukatea forest and unusual hard beech forests. Less welcome however is the announcement by Government that Forest Products have agreed to relinquish only 27 hectares of their lease over the nearby Puwhenua State Forest. A much bigger area of this forest should have been excluded from the lease because the whole area is a key kokako forest. It has all been ranked by Wildlife Service as outstanding wildlife habitat and unprotected

forest is now destined for exotic conversion.