Wartime Gifts

Forest and Bird, Issue 300, 1 May 2001, Page 40

Wartime Gifts

Mr W B Atkins, a neighbouring farmer at the time and later honorary ranger for Pryce’s Rahui Reserve, relates that a sawmiller in the Hunterville region approached Eric Oakeley Pryce, after whom the reserve is named, to secure the forest for milling purposes. Mr Pryce’s answer was a definite ‘No. In response the miller remarked that he could secure the milling rights under War Regulations, and gave him some days to think the matter

over. Eric Pryce immediately took steps to hand the area over as a scenic reserve to the Rangitikei Scenery Preservation and Tree Planting Society, and when the miller returned he was informed that the forest had new owners. A similar story is related about McPherson’s Reserve, then owned as part of the landholdings of Alex McPherson Junior. He also wished to save his forest from being taken over by the Government for timber required for the war effort. There must have been some communication between McPherson and Pryce, as both gifts of land were donated to the Rangitikei Society on the same day, March 18, 1941. In 1961 the Rangitikei Scenery Preservation Society merged with Forest and Bird and the Rangitikei Forest and Bird Section was formed. From this merger Forest and Bird gained McPherson’s’ and Pryce’s Rahui Reserves along with the Simpson property, originally gifted to the Rangitikei Society by Margaret Kirk-Patrick Simpson. The 9-hectare McPherson’s Reserve is situated just up from Taurimu Rd on Turakina Valley Rd, north of Marton. It has an internal track system that roughly follows a figure-of-

eight pattern with a stream running through the middle, spanned by a wooden bridge. Its forest consists of impressive stands of tawa with titoki and emergent kahikatea, rewarewa, matai and occasional miro and rimu. At almost 13 hectares, Pryce’s Rahui Reserve is an excellent example of floodplain podocarp forest, dominated by huge kahikatea trees and matai. This forest type was once common along the fertile river flats of the Rangitikei River but much of this has unfortunately been cleared for pastoral farming, leaving only isolated remnants. In narrow channels and on its western margin there is swamp vegetation varying from raupo and flax reedland to wet shrubland dominated by coprosmas, cabbage trees and occasional Olearia virgata. In drier western areas there is tall kanuka forest with pole-sized to medium-sized totara, matai, kahikatea and rimu. The reserve contains green mistletoe Ileostylus micranthus, which has only local distribution. Pryce’s Rahui Reserve is accessed from the end of Putorino Rd where it meets the Rangitikei River, 8 kilometres east of Rata. Like McPherson’s it has a network of internal tracks, with boardwalks over

wet areas that skirt the different vegetation types of the reserve.