Qualla: Waipoua Forest

Waipoua Forest: Introduction

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:gadfium, Public domain. On 25 September 1947, the Member of Parliament for Marsden, AJ Murdoch, wheeled thirteen volumes of signatures into New Zealand's parliament in a wheelbarrow. The 43,000 names demanded that the Waipoua State Forest be declared a national park and that all milling cease immediately. Five years later, on 2 July 1952, over 80 square kilometres of forest was proclaimed a sanctuary. Inside that sanctuary stand trees that were already ancient when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, already old when the first Maori migration canoes arrived from Hawaiki. Tane Mahuta, Lord of the Forest, and Te Matua Ngahere, Father of the Forest, are the two largest living kauri trees in New Zealand, and together they anchor a remnant of primeval forest on the west coast of Northland that draws 200,000 visitors a year.

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Image: User:gadfium | Public domain

Waipoua Forest: Last Giants Standing

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Waipoua, Warawara, and Puketi forests together hold about three quarters of New Zealand's remaining mature kauri trees, and Waipoua contains the largest single stand. These are not ordinary trees. Kauri grow slowly and massively, their trunks pushing skyward in smooth grey co...

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Image: W. Bulach | CC BY-SA 4.0

Waipoua Forest: Saved by Remoteness and Rain

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit brewbooks from near Seattle, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Waipoua Forest was purchased from Maori, specifically Tiopira Kinaka of Te Roroa and Parore Te Awha of Te Kuihi, as part of the Waipoua Block No. 1 in 1876 for a little over two thousand pounds. By 1907, Waipoua and Warawara were the only virgin kauri forests still belonging ...

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Image: brewbooks from near Seattle, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

Waipoua Forest: The Road Through the Forest

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shelley Langton-Myers, CC BY-SA 4.0. In July 1926, the government announced a road would be cut through Waipoua Forest to give neighbouring settlers access to their land. Work began that same month with 15 men. On 13 January 1928, Prime Minister Joseph Gordon Coates opened the road, and more than 100 vehicles report...

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Image: Shelley Langton-Myers | CC BY-SA 4.0

Waipoua Forest: A Disease Without a Cure

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pseudopanax at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The fungus Phytophthora taxon Agathis is killing kauri trees, and there is no known cure. Kauri dieback, as the disease is called, spreads through soil movement, which means a single contaminated boot can carry it from tree to tree. The Waipoua Forest Trust, a joint partnership b...

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Image: Pseudopanax at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Waipoua Forest: Guardians Old and New

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Oren Rozen, CC BY-SA 3.0. Te Roroa have been the kaitiaki, guardians, of Waipoua for centuries, and the modern conservation effort honours that relationship. The Waipoua Forest Trust was established in 1999 as a partnership between Te Roroa and the Native Forests Restoration Trust. In 2000, the government...

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Image: Oren Rozen | CC BY-SA 3.0