Speaking for the trees — a personal statement.

Forest and Bird, Volume 18, Issue 2, 1 May 1987, Page 9

Speaking for the trees — a personal statement.

Kevin Smith

y interest in South Westland and its great podocarp forests dates back to when I was a boy in a small King Country sawmilling town of Owhango. I was keen on nature and was given Cockayne’s New Zealand Plants and their Story. This contained a couple of John Johns’ marvellous black and white photos of South Westland’s forests including one of a dense stand of kahikatea at Harihari. Those photos sparked my interest in West Coast forests and helped set me off on a career

in forest ecology. Later, after working with the Forest Service in the West Taupo forests, I jumped at the chance of research work on South Westland kahikatea forest. | fell in love with the place on my forest field trip and soon shifted over to Harihari with my wife, Barbara Devery. We have been here now for 10 years and are enjoying watching our children grow up full of delight in the natural world around them. I vividly recall our first experience of kahikatea forest: wading through knee deep water beneath incredibly tall trees, meeting a friendly robin that perched gaily on our heads, then breaking out on to the riverbed and being overwhelmed by the panorama of forest, river and mountains. But a trip to a logging site in lanthe forest brough us back to earth with a thump. The destructive wasteful logging there was no different to that of the King Country or West Taupo. Ecology soon merged into conservation as we joined the long fight for Okarito, Pureora, Paparoa and the kahikatea forests. Barbara took to pos-

sum trapping to supplement my meagre research grant and I soon followed out of necessity. For five years I chased possums in Saltwater and Okarito forests and spent each spring deer shooting in the kahikatea and beech forests of Mataketake forest. During these long periods alone in the forests, they became part of me and I gradually learnt to live by nature’s rhythms. Every spare moment it seems was spent on conservation until three years ago when Forest and Bird gave me the opportunity to work full time on conservation. For Barbara and I, life has not always been easy as conservationists on the West Coast but we are sustained by the tremendous energy generated by thousands and thousands of people throughout New Zealand determined to protect their precious nature heritage. Our greatest satisfaction has come from watching more and more courageous West Coasters speaking out in support of conservation. For if we don’t speak for the trees, who will, if not now, when.

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