Kauri forest
Trail photos
Author
Trail stats
- Distance
- 1.48 mi
- Elevation gain
- 138 ft
- Technical difficulty
- Moderate
- Elevation loss
- 138 ft
- Max elevation
- 1,161 ft
- TrailRank
- 53
- Min elevation
- 1,064 ft
- Trail type
- Loop
- Moving time
- 29 minutes
- Time
- one hour one minute
- Coordinates
- 396
- Uploaded
- January 29, 2024
- Recorded
- January 2024
near Wekaweka, Northland (New Zealand)
Viewed 38 times, downloaded 0 times
Trail photos
Itinerary description
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from wikipedia
Waipoua Forest is a forest, on the west coast of the Northland region, on the North Island of New Zealand. It preserves some of the best examples of kauri forest remaining in New Zealand. It is known for having two of the largest living kauri trees, Tāne Mahuta and Te Matua Ngahere.
The forest was declared a sanctuary in 1952. A community-based volunteer organisation, the Waipoua Forest Trust, helps maintain the forest. The sanctuary is bordered to the south by the 350-hectare (860-acre) Professor W.R. McGregor Reserve, named after W.R. McGregor (1894–1977). [1] In the 1940s, McGregor and others successfully campaigned to end logging of the forest and have it declared a sanctuary, a status achieved in 1952. [2] [3] [4]
Today, the forest is a significant attraction for visitors to Northland, with around 200,000 people visiting Tāne Mahuta each year. [5] This has led to concerns about the health of the forest and the spread of kauri disease. [6] There are also easy paths to Te Matua Ngahere and the Four Sisters, and a longer path leading south past the seventh largest kauri tree, Yakas kauri. [7]
Ecology
The Waipoua, Warawara and Puketi forests together contain around three-quarters of New Zealand's remaining mature kauri trees. The Waipoua Forest is home to the largest remaining stand of these trees. [8] It contains Te Matua Ngahere, a remarkable kauri tree that is New Zealand's largest by circumference and second largest by volume, and is estimated to be 2,000 to 3,000 years old. [9] Trees are threatened by the fungus Phytophthora taxon Agathis. [10] [11] The Waipoua Forest Trust has called for urgent action from the government to find a cure for the problem. [12] The forest is home to the North Island's largest brown kiwi population in Northland. Populations of the endangered North Island kōkako are found on the plateau.
A bushfire threatened the Waipoua Forest when it broke out on February 1, 2007 after someone cooked mussels over an open fire at a nearby beach. The fire burned pine plantation adjacent to native forest, but destroyed ecologically significant wetland vegetation and came within 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) of the iconic Tāne Mahuta. The fire was brought under control by local firefighters and environmental volunteers, who managed to stop its spread using helicopters and fire brakes. Millions of dollars of pine trees and many endangered birds were lost, including about 20 North Island brown kiwis. In all the fire caused more than 2 square kilometers (0.77 square miles) of vegetation. [13] [14]
History
The jungle inside the Waipoua Forest.
Waipoua Forest was purchased from Māori, namely Tiopira Kinaka (Te Roroa) and Parore Te Awha (Te Kuihi) as part of Waipoua Block No. 1 [15] in 1876 [16] for just over £2,000. At the time it covered about 80 square kilometers (31 square miles).
In 1885 the Waipoua Forest came under the provisions of the State Forestry Act, [17] and an area of 90 km² was established as a state forest reserve. One of the reasons it was saved from destruction in the past was its remoteness combined with the difficulty of extracting its timber. Another was that, as in the Warawara to the north, rainfall was more consistent and abundant so that Maori and European fires had not engulfed it (as happened in Kaihu, Puhipuhi and much of the Coromandel forest in the 1970s and 1980s).
In 1907 the Waipoua Forest, the Warawara Forest and one or two other smaller reserves were the only remaining virgin kauri forests belonging to the state. In 1913 a Royal Commission on Forestry recommended that a specially selected area of 0.8 square kilometers (0.31 square miles) of the Waipoua Forest, and the entire 50 square kilometers (19 square miles) Warawara Forest, be established as national kauri forests for the people of New Zealand. [18] In 1926 a road was built through the Waipoua Forest to provide access to nearby settlers' lands.
In the 1940s it became known that the State Forest Service was cutting kauri in Waipoua. In 1947 the Whangarei Progressive Society, in association with the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, the Waipoua Preservation Society and other organizations obtained more than 43,000 signatures on a petition calling for the "declaration of the Waipoua State Forest as a national park under a board of trustees and that all milling and other state forestry activities should cease.’ The petition consisted of thirteen volumes of signatures, which were presented by Marsden MP, AJ Murdoch in a wheelbarrow to parliament on 25 September 1947. The hope was that 160 square kilometers (62 square miles) in Waipoua were to be set apart forever, inviolate from human interference.Further petitions followed, and on 2 July 1952 an area of over 80 square kilometers (31 square miles) was proclaimed a forest sanctuary [20] Zoologist William Roy McGregor was one of the driving forces behind this movement, writing an 80-page illustrated booklet on the subject, which proved to be an effective manifesto for conservation. [21]
In the late 1960s, in violation of the 1913 recommendations, which were effectively adopted, the national government began clear-cutting of the Warawara forest. This was not stopped until 1972 following a large public outcry and the fulfillment of an election promise by the new Labor government. In this short period, approximately 1/5 of the forest was felled (approximately 1/4 of the volume of timber).
Waipoua Forest is a forest, on the west coast of the Northland region, on the North Island of New Zealand. It preserves some of the best examples of kauri forest remaining in New Zealand. It is known for having two of the largest living kauri trees, Tāne Mahuta and Te Matua Ngahere.
The forest was declared a sanctuary in 1952. A community-based volunteer organisation, the Waipoua Forest Trust, helps maintain the forest. The sanctuary is bordered to the south by the 350-hectare (860-acre) Professor W.R. McGregor Reserve, named after W.R. McGregor (1894–1977). [1] In the 1940s, McGregor and others successfully campaigned to end logging of the forest and have it declared a sanctuary, a status achieved in 1952. [2] [3] [4]
Today, the forest is a significant attraction for visitors to Northland, with around 200,000 people visiting Tāne Mahuta each year. [5] This has led to concerns about the health of the forest and the spread of kauri disease. [6] There are also easy paths to Te Matua Ngahere and the Four Sisters, and a longer path leading south past the seventh largest kauri tree, Yakas kauri. [7]
Ecology
The Waipoua, Warawara and Puketi forests together contain around three-quarters of New Zealand's remaining mature kauri trees. The Waipoua Forest is home to the largest remaining stand of these trees. [8] It contains Te Matua Ngahere, a remarkable kauri tree that is New Zealand's largest by circumference and second largest by volume, and is estimated to be 2,000 to 3,000 years old. [9] Trees are threatened by the fungus Phytophthora taxon Agathis. [10] [11] The Waipoua Forest Trust has called for urgent action from the government to find a cure for the problem. [12] The forest is home to the North Island's largest brown kiwi population in Northland. Populations of the endangered North Island kōkako are found on the plateau.
A bushfire threatened the Waipoua Forest when it broke out on February 1, 2007 after someone cooked mussels over an open fire at a nearby beach. The fire burned pine plantation adjacent to native forest, but destroyed ecologically significant wetland vegetation and came within 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) of the iconic Tāne Mahuta. The fire was brought under control by local firefighters and environmental volunteers, who managed to stop its spread using helicopters and fire brakes. Millions of dollars of pine trees and many endangered birds were lost, including about 20 North Island brown kiwis. In all the fire caused more than 2 square kilometers (0.77 square miles) of vegetation. [13] [14]
History
The jungle inside the Waipoua Forest.
Waipoua Forest was purchased from Māori, namely Tiopira Kinaka (Te Roroa) and Parore Te Awha (Te Kuihi) as part of Waipoua Block No. 1 [15] in 1876 [16] for just over £2,000. At the time it covered about 80 square kilometers (31 square miles).
In 1885 the Waipoua Forest came under the provisions of the State Forestry Act, [17] and an area of 90 km² was established as a state forest reserve. One of the reasons it was saved from destruction in the past was its remoteness combined with the difficulty of extracting its timber. Another was that, as in the Warawara to the north, rainfall was more consistent and abundant so that Maori and European fires had not engulfed it (as happened in Kaihu, Puhipuhi and much of the Coromandel forest in the 1970s and 1980s).
In 1907 the Waipoua Forest, the Warawara Forest and one or two other smaller reserves were the only remaining virgin kauri forests belonging to the state. In 1913 a Royal Commission on Forestry recommended that a specially selected area of 0.8 square kilometers (0.31 square miles) of the Waipoua Forest, and the entire 50 square kilometers (19 square miles) Warawara Forest, be established as national kauri forests for the people of New Zealand. [18] In 1926 a road was built through the Waipoua Forest to provide access to nearby settlers' lands.
In the 1940s it became known that the State Forest Service was cutting kauri in Waipoua. In 1947 the Whangarei Progressive Society, in association with the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, the Waipoua Preservation Society and other organizations obtained more than 43,000 signatures on a petition calling for the "declaration of the Waipoua State Forest as a national park under a board of trustees and that all milling and other state forestry activities should cease.’ The petition consisted of thirteen volumes of signatures, which were presented by Marsden MP, AJ Murdoch in a wheelbarrow to parliament on 25 September 1947. The hope was that 160 square kilometers (62 square miles) in Waipoua were to be set apart forever, inviolate from human interference.Further petitions followed, and on 2 July 1952 an area of over 80 square kilometers (31 square miles) was proclaimed a forest sanctuary [20] Zoologist William Roy McGregor was one of the driving forces behind this movement, writing an 80-page illustrated booklet on the subject, which proved to be an effective manifesto for conservation. [21]
In the late 1960s, in violation of the 1913 recommendations, which were effectively adopted, the national government began clear-cutting of the Warawara forest. This was not stopped until 1972 following a large public outcry and the fulfillment of an election promise by the new Labor government. In this short period, approximately 1/5 of the forest was felled (approximately 1/4 of the volume of timber).
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1,122 ft
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