A vision for Walpoua

Forest and Bird, Volume 17, Issue 2, 1 May 1986, Page 16

A vision for Walpoua

For more than a century the majestic kauri has been toppled at an alarming rate until only remnants of this wonder of the forest world remain today. One of these — Waipoua Forest on Northland’s west coast — was not protected until conservation stalwart Professor Barney McGregor took up its cause. Waipoua was created a Sanctuary in 1952 — but had in fact Barney McGregor won his battle? Not entirely. Society northern regional officer Mark Bellingham outlines two important new reserve initiatives which bring McGregor's vision closer to reality.

"Waipoua — a museum for kauris to rot in’’ — Forest Service, 1952. oday such an attitude would be laughed out of court; however in 1952 the notion that forests did not need tending like a garden was virtually heresy, making McGregor’s achievement in obtaining state protection for Waipoua nothing less than Herculean. He spearheaded a 50,000-strong petition to Parliament, so weighty that it was trundled in on a wheelbarrow, seeking a National Park for Waipoua in its entirety. Instead he got a Sanctuary containing only the dense kauri forests and upland hardwood forests. The unique coastal forests and regenerating kauri heathlands were omitted. McGregor had won a war, but much of his battleground remained unprotected. The virtues of Waipoua have long been lauded by politicians, officials and the New Zealand public. Many, such as Prime Ministers William Massey and Joseph Savage, had a personal concern for its integrity. Originally it was safeguarded from the ravages of logging by its inaccessibility. But as the lowlands surrounding Waipoua were cleared for farmland, pressure was put on the Government to push a road through the forest. Massey refused to sanction the road; however, following his death in 1926 work was commenced. At the time McGregor declared it would drive a wedge through the heart of the forest (a wedge which has been driven deeper with the recent destructive road widening). Logging started in Waipoua in 1943 for the ‘‘war emergency,’’ despite timber being available in other areas. This ‘"‘"emergency"’ logging continued at an accelerated rate after the war had ended. Much of the kauri was exported and some ended up as fence posts and battens. Waipoua addition The present 9105-hectare Sanctuary is merely the nucleus of a much larger area of forests and shrubland worthy of protection. Two recent moves may bring a Waipoua National Park much closer. In January 1985 Forest and Bird proposed a 3000-hectare addition to the Sanctuary to take in the lowland and coastal forests and heathlands between the Sanctuary and the Tasman Sea. This area is one of the few sites on the west coast of the North Island where there is a continuous forest sequence from coastal to upland forests. It has a number of other unusual features: giant kauri stands on sand dunes surrounded by heathlands; unique kauri-monoao-silver pine forests; a colony of the rare Pittosporum pimeleoides.

Other features of interest in the reserve proposal include several Maori settlement sites along the Waipoua and Wairau rivers and fossilised kauri trunks in the sandhills — evidence that kauri giants may once have grown right to the ocean edge. Two new loop tracks have been proposed to link a coastal route with the old Coach Road in Matarau Forest and a Wairau River route with the famous Cockayne kauri (outside the Sanctuary), plus the Sanctuary giants Tane Mahuta and Yakas. Both walks would take trampers through a range of fascinating forest sequences. A journey along the Wairau River shows how arbitrary our legal boundaries can be.

Rising high in the Parataiko Range, this watercourse trickles down onto the Waipoua Plateau. Each year thousands of visitors cross the footbridge over the Wairau as it winds sluggishly past Tane Mahuta within the swampy upland kauri forests. Reaching the edge of the plateau, the river suddenly loses the protective cloak of the Sanctuary as it rushes seaward, tumbling over rapids and down waterfalls, dropping some 350 metres along its 13 km course. Along the length of the river sand grey columns of pristine kauri, mixed with tarairi, tawa and totara; this is the only Northland river with a virtually untouched catchment. Yet much of this unique area is still unprotected in a ‘‘kauri management zone"’, a Forest Service brainchild which demands that other species are ringbarked in order to boost logging volumes of planted kauris. The Forest and Bird Waipoua Sanctuary extension proposal has still to be evaluated by the Government's Protected Areas Scientific Advisory Committee; however, within both the Forest Service and the scientific community there is considerable support for it. McGregor Reserve The second Waipoua initiative is the 146hectare McGregor Reserve, opened in December 1985 by the Native Forest Restoration Trust on the south side of the Sanctuary. This reserve, affording magnificent views across the Sanctuary, is grassed in the centre but will be revegetated. Much of it is tawa-tarairi forest studded with many giant totara. The speed with which money had to be found to finance purchase of the reserve provided members of the Trust with some heart stopping moments. At the beginning of October the Trust knew it had only six weeks to find $102,500, though the financial burden was reduced somewhat with an offer of $40,000 from the QE II National Trust, provided the appeal could raise the remainder. Owen Lewis, Chairman of the Native Forests Restoration Trust, points out that the appeal was an interesting lesson in the importance of every individual's effort. Most of the money consisted of small donations from thousands of people, and the deadline of November 20 was met with ease.

‘"‘We sent out 45,000 pamphlets, mostly to the northern North Island but in fact we received some donations from the South Island and overseas. Local Forest and Bird groups were also extremely helpful,’’ he says. The project marks a new direction for Waipoua, and returns an important part of the forest into the safe custody of Tane. Day-to-day management of the reserve will be in the hands of the Conservation Department and kauri planting is planned. Already the healing process has begun. At the December opening ceremony the first miller who cleared the land 40 years ago turned up at the dedication and planted a miro, grown from one which had once stood in Waipoua. Private forest razed National interest has almost exclusively fo-

cussed on Waipoua, yet it is only part of a larger forest block that covers 25,000 hectares. This includes the Waima, Matarua and Waipoua blocks of Northland Forest Park and some 4500 hectares of privatelyowned forest. Tragically most of this pri-vately-owned forest is unprotected and is being progressively cleared. In the past five years large scale exotic forestry by New Zealand Forest Products and Shell Oil has razed native forest and blanketed farmland to the east and southeast of Waipoua. Although the momentum of this conversion has slowed recently, the companies still control the fate of several

large blocks of native forest. It is an appropriate time for them to foster lasting community goodwill by giving these native forests full protection. When the Conservation Department takes over administration of state forests and crown reserves, most contiguous pub-licly-owned native forests will be managed as one unit. But is this enough? The new department should live up to its name by actively pursuing forest protection on private lands more vigorously than the agencies it supplants. McGregor'’s vision of an extensive national park may be closer than we think. ¥