Puketi Forest Trust Launched in Far North

Forest and Bird, Issue 311, 1 February 2004, Page 44

Puketi Forest Trust Launched in Far North

orest and Bird members in the Far North have been involved in the establishment of a new trust to raise funds for predator control in Puketi Forest Park. The trust includes members of Piki-te Aroha marae, Te Runanga o Whaingaroa, and other interested community volunteers. Their ‘mission’ is to ‘restore Puketi to a complete living forest essential to the spiritual, cultural, historic, economic, and social well-being of communities, and maintain it for future generations. The emphasis is on pest removal to allow the subtropical biodiversity to flourish. The trust has adopted the slogan "Oho mai Puketi — Awaken Puketi’. The aim is to control

predators over at least 2000 hectares of the forest. The money needed for the first year’s control was raised within one month of the launch. Fundraising was greatly helped by a donation of $25,000 from a local businessman. This funding has already enabled the Trust to employ a trapper, who started work in mid-October. Until recently, Puketi Forest Park held an important population of kokako. The steady decline caused by introduced predators resulted in the loss of all the known female birds. This project aims to restore the forest so that not only will kokako song ring out over the canopy again, but the entire forest will be awakened, and locally extinct species can be re-introduced.

More information on this project can be found on the website www.puketi.org.nz or by phoning Gary Bramley on

(09) 4050 074 or by writing to the trust at PO Box 257, Kaeo 0471, Northland.