A Living New Zealand Forest

Forest and Bird, Volume 23, Issue 2, 1 May 1992, Page 47

A Living New Zealand Forest

Ian Close

by Robert Brockie (David Bateman) $95; special price to Forest and Bird members $85 In 1966 the DSIR commenced a major series of studies of the Orongorongo Valley forests near Wellington — a study of the links, interactions, balances and imbalances of the forest plants and animals. The study continued for 25 years and the 1,200ha research block became one of the most intensively examined forest communities anywhere in the world. It generated over 80 scientific papers, a score of departmental reports and many of its findings have already been incorporated into conservation management practices. Here for the first time the study, its findings and their implications for all New Zealand’s forests are put together in a coherent form in non-technical language. The results, if we didn’t already know it, make depressing reading. Far from being pristine, our forests are being radically altered and their stability and tranquillity is largely illusory. Natural disturbances, such as droughts, gales and earthquakes which for millenia the forests took in their stride, have been supplemented, particularly in the last 150 years, by the depredations of foreign animals. The activities of these animals says Brockie "have outstripped the self-healing power of the forest, degrading its botanical integrity, reshaping its makeup and structure, consigning it to an impoverished future. Alien predators and competitors came to dominate the native animal life of the forest." This is certainly the book’s central message. While the overall results are the most important, it is the detail of the various forest processes and interactions that provide the fascination: the changes with the seasons; the fact that nearly a third of the rain falling on the Orongorongo forest is held in the canopy and evaporates without reaching the ground; that the main food of

feral cats is rats and possums, not native birds; and that rabbits have adapted to living in the bush as well as they do in open country. Brockie was one of the team leaders for part of the study. He writes elegantly and the book is well organised and produced. Some of the 30 colour plates are not particularly good but that is maybe because they were record shots taken over a 25-year period. All the plates are thoughtfully captioned as are the 150 well-drawn figures and diagrams.