Taranaki

Forest and Bird, Issue 298, 1 November 2000, Page 27

Taranaki

—Gordon Ell.

‘New Zealand's second oldest national park has turned 100.

ts possible to drive right around Taranaki over two or three days without ever seeing the mountain. Yet, when the cloud clears, the mountain defines the region. The volcanic cone lies at the centre of the province, its products the basis of rich soils which ring the mountain. Taranaki itself stands apart from the pastureland, however, surrounded by an almost perfect circle of forest. Seen from the air, the forests of Egmont National Park look like a saucer of bush, abruptly margined with pasture, surrounding the steep cone of Taranaki. The line is no accident. In 1881, as the surrounding ring plain was cleared for farming, the Taranaki Provincial Council protected the mountain’s forests within a radius of six miles (10 kilometres) of the

summit. This ‘forest reserve’ of 29,292 hectares was combined with a further 2400 hectares of forests extending onto the adjacent Kaitake Range, when Egmont National Park was gazetted in 1900. Over the ensuing century a further 1835 hectares has been added. From October 2000, Egmont National Park celebrates its centennial as the second oldest national park in New Zealand. Taranaki itself is such a striking feature that it is easy to overlook the adjacent ranges, themselves the worn-down cusps of older volcanoes. Maori tradition has

Taranaki marching overnight from the volcanic plateau of the central North Island, after fighting Tongariro for the love of Pihanga: after rending open the gorges of the Whanganui River, Taranaki was arrested in his night march by the Pouakai Range, stopping before the sea. The Pouakai Range, now also part of the park, lies to its northwest, with continuous bush flowing beyond, across Pukeiti (and the Rhododenron Trust gardens), to the separated part of the park atop the Kaitake Range. Pouakai and Kaitake, like Paritutu and the Sugar Loaf islets at New Plymouth, are even

The Renaming of Taranaki TT teves is the Maori and an official name for the mountain encompassed by Egmont National Park. The name of the park, however, follows the European naming of the mountain as Egmont. Lieutenant James Cook gave its English name in January 1770 while circumnavigating New Zealand. He was honouring a former First Lord of the British Admiralty, the Earl of Egmont. The scientist with Cook’s expedition, Sir Joseph Banks, then wrote: ‘This morning soon after daybreak, we had a momentary view of our great hill, the top of which was thickly covered with snow, though this month answers to July in England. How high it might be I do not take upon me to judge, but it is certainly the noblest hill I have ever seen, and it appears to the utmost advantage, rising from the sea without another hill in the neighbourhood one-fourth its height’ Mount Egmont thus found itself on the official charts, but the name of Taranaki remained with the province. The name of Taranaki for the mountain was restored to New Zealand maps by the Geographic Board in 1986, jointly with Mt Egmont, in one of the first official restorations of traditional names to the colonised landscape.

older volcanoes than Taranaki. For Taranaki, benign as it may appear in its surrounding ring plain of lush grass, is barely dormant. Its historical record, laid down in successive ash showers, suggests it erupts a minor ash shower once a century, on average. The last record is from 1775. A careful look at the Taranaki countryside reveals great mounds of volcanic spoil — lahars — spread across the plains, evidence of what might happen again in the case of a major eruption. Glowing clouds of gas and lava have rolled down the mountain in the past. Its steeper slopes, which tend to stabilise at 35 degrees, are actually heavily eroded, with reefs of solid lava standing in places against deep and moving gullies of volcanic ash. Much of the volcanic activity occurred during the great Ice Ages which separated Taranaki from the remainder of New Zealand. This is one of the explanations offered for the absence of beech forests on the mountain. Instead of rising through the usual succession of rainforests to beech near the snowline Taranaki has a moss forest, clinging to kamahi, then open ridges clothed in hard-leaved leatherwood scrub. There are many hectares of this wind-com-pacted shrub daisy spreading along some ridges. Mountain flowers and tussock grow in the lee of volcanic cliffs and boulders. It is a harsh environment. At any season, katabatic winds may drop from the mountain top, sweeping its flanks with cold air. From the visitors’ point of view Mount Egmont is particularly accessible. Three mountain roads climb from the farmlands through rainforest, nearly to the treeline. Commercial lodges on the mountain complement the more rugged accommodations of mountain huts and two ‘intermediate’ lodges provided by the Department of Conservation. Walking tracks also access the Pouakai and Kaitake sectors of the park. On Taranaki there is a Round-the-

Mountain walk (taking up to seven days), traversing its forested flanks, with the summer alternative of emerging in several places to walk on the open flanks of the mountain, itself an 18-hour circuit. Walking tracks from the road ends explore the adjacent forest, or point the walker up into the sub-alpine zone. Altogether, Egmont National Park offers some 206 kilometres of tracks. There are also established routes up Taranaki itself, and the ‘parasitic’ cone of Fantham’s Peak on the south flank of the mountain. Climbing the mountain has been the cause of some controversy, ever since the scientist Ernst Dieffenbach and the whaler James Heberley became the first Europeans to do so in 1836. Maori regard the mountain as an ancestor and its head too sacred to disturb. The recently published Egmont National Park Management Plan Review suggests climbers do not take the final step

to stand on its peak as a mark of respect. (A similar suggestion is made on behalf of Ngai Tahu at Mount Cook National Park, to protect the sacred summit of Aoraki.) In 1978, the ownership of Mount Taranaki was granted to the Taranaki Maori Trust Board on behalf of tribes which had suffered through the Crown’s confiscation of much of their land during the Taranaki wars of the 1860s. More than generously, the Trust Board immediately returned the mountain to the care of the Crown, as a national park for all. In the park’s centennial year, however, ownership of the mountain is again being contested.

Eight Taranaki tribes with an interest in the mountain have laid claims with the Crown for its return. Resolution of these claims may be some way off. It is understood the case of the mountain will be determined only after agreements have been reached with the Office of Treaty Settlements over the various other claims made by the tribes, and that could take sev-

eral years.

Taranaki Treasures ike all New Zealand’s national Egmont has its share of peculiar treasures which set it apart as having national park qualities. The iconic shape of the mountain itself gives its scenery the exceptional qualities which distinguish national parks. The quality and peculiarity of its forests contribute too. Among animal treasures are meateating giant snails, Powelliphanta, similar to those of northwest Nelson but possibly a yet-to-be-described species. With a diameter up to 110 millimetres, these snails are believed to live up to 20 years or more. Their habitat covers an area of just 30 hectares on the mountain. Four threatened species of native fish — all galaxiids, mature whitebait — are found in the pure streams which fall from the mountain. Through the 1990s determined efforts have been made in the park to restore the blue duck population. North Island brown kiwi are widespread. Besides the particular associations of native plants and trees, Taranaki has some specialties among _ its plants. These include a mountain shrub Melicytus drucei, rare and restricted to Egmont National Park and the woodrose parasite which lives underground. In 1995, two nationally threatened plants were found in a swamp adjoining the park. One, a small herb called Gratiola nana, had only one other record from Taranaki, by the botanist Thomas Kirk, in 1887. The other, a large water milfoil, was unknown before in Taranaki. The area of swamp and swamp forest has been purchased for addition to the park.