Stewart Island: the last refuge

Forest and Bird, Issue 268, 1 May 1993, Page 41

Stewart Island: the last refuge

Ann Graeme

by Neville Peat, photos by Erwin Brinkmann (Random House New Zealand) 1992, 118pp, $49.95 "Tt is hard to speak of the scenery of Stewart Island without using a superabundance of superlatives," wrote pioneer botanist Leonard Cockayne in 1909. His opinion still holds true today, thanks to the island’s geographic isolation and a climate politely described as inhospitable. But when the sun shines and the roaring forties let up, Stewart Island looks like a primeval paradise of beaches, forests and mountains. I was particularly interested to learn of the extraordinary diversity of plant species and communities, the abundance of tree daisies, and also that plants of alpine or subalpine habit further north, grow at sea level on the island. Neville Peat’s readable and informative commentary looks at the island’s natural features, its plants, animals and landscapes and its human and geological history. Sadly, as Peat explains, this primeval world is no longer pristine, for possums and deer ravage the forests, and cats and rats plunder the birdlife. But to a Mainlander, the birds are remarkably numerous, and the forest still runs from the mountains to the sea. The text reflects the author’s love of Stewart Island and its little community. And this love is evidently shared by Erwin Brinkmann, whose photographs capture the rugged and brooding landscape and the essential wilderness of this untamed island.