The Urewera Forest Area

Forest and Bird, Issue 106, 1 November 1952, Page 6

The Urewera Forest Area

By

BERNARD TEAGUE

PROPOSED 500,000 ACRE NATIONAL PARK THE announcement at the Society’s Anual General Meeting, by the Hon. Mr. Corbett, Minister of Lands and Forests, of the Government’s intention to create a 500,000 acre National Park in the Urewera, is a definite step towards the. fruition of efforts made over many years by our Society and other organisations and individuals. The announcement followed the address, “The Forest Land of the Tuhoe Tribes’’, given by Mr. Bernard Teague, who described the area concerned and illustrated his address with over a hundred lantern slides. Mr. Teague here gives a brief description of the Tuhoe forest.

Steep, forest clad ranges, rivers and streams flowing in deep narrow gorges, misty clouds clinging lovingly to mountain tops, with summits that are not quite high enough to achieve the openness of tussockclad snowtops, this is a quick description of the Urewera forest area.

It must not be imagined however that “Te Urewera” is a harsh, rugged or gloomy land. Apart from the occasional roughness of portions of its great gorges, or a steep facade of cliffs and bluffs where some cataclysmic upthrust of ages past has given a precipitous face to the side of a mountain range, it is a quiet land of soft beauty. Its rivers and streams are not difficult, unclimbable cataracts as are many of New Zealand’s mountain streams. Where there are waterfalls they are soft and beautiful, the waterways are easy of passage to the tramper, it is a quiet land, soft and lovely, with a climate that is singularly free from the wild storms and blizzards that regularly sweep mountain country in other parts of Aotearoa.

No one can now tell when the people of Nga-potiki (or Tuhoe-potiki) first came to these great forests to become, through their centuries of occupation, the greatest bushmen that New Zealand has ever known. We do know that they were pre-Maori in origin, and indeed, when the main migration of Maoris arrived, these “tangata whenua” were driven even deeper into the forest, to find in these canyon-like halls of Tane, a place of refuge.

As the result of an accident that he suffered, an aged Tuhoe Chief was given

the sarcastic nickname of “Te Urewera”. With the passing of the years the name spread from the chief’s own hapu to cover the whole of the tribes of Tuhoe, until today,, it is universally used. More beautiful is the title bestowed on the Tuhoe people by their chief historian, the late Elsdon Best, who called the people he loved so much, “The Children of the Mist”. I have never heard this title used in other than its English form.*

The name Urewera today embraces a far greater tract of forest than it did in stone age times. The forest is practically unbroken from the Bay of Plenty and the back of Gisborne through to its junction with the planted exotic forests of the Taupo area. To the west it stretches down to the Kaimanawa ranges. The same forest surrounds Lake Waikaremoana and clothes the tops of the ranges above the high rim of the inland Hawkes Bay sheep .stations. Yet Waikaremoana was not originally part of “Te Urewera”, indeed, the Tuhoe tribes, and the Ngati Ruapani of Waikaremoana were often at war with one another. The great eastern continuation of the forest to the headwaters of the Hangaroa and Waioeka rivers in the Te Wana area was not, I think, reckoned as Urewera land. But today practically the whole of the area mentioned is included in the title and for the purposes of the formation of a National Park the largest possible area should be considered. The Lake Waikaremoana watershed is already preserved as a reserve and bird sanctuary and although the Lake has been the Cinderella of tourists resorts

for many years and the several Government departments who are interested in its control have shown very little initiative in developing it, thousands of people have visited the “Sea of Rippling Waters” each year and have gone away charmed. As the great star attraction of the future National Park, Waikaremoana has great possibilities and is capable of much development.

The Urewera forest is perhaps quieter and lonelier today than it has ever been since the stone age Maruiwi and Maori first set foot in its deep hidden gorges. With the passing of the stone age there came a short tumultuous period when the Armed Constabulary probed the forest routes seeking the elusive rebel, Te Kooti. Lonely valleys heard shots fired in war and pas were burnt and pakeha wounded carried out over the steep hill tracks. After this period the Maori gradually forsook his clearings deep in the forest with the result that today the only centres of Maori life are around Ruatahuna and Te Whaiti. Today Government deer killers and one or two trampers are the only ones who know the area as a whole.

There are signs however that this long quiet period in the history of this forest is coming to a close. No longer is the Urewera forest the forgotten forest of the North Island. The eyes of men are upon it for several reasons. From Auckland to

Hawkes Bay and in Wellington power supply authorities have realised the importance of maintaining the forest as a catchment area for the three Waikaremoana power stations and for the other power stations of the North Island. Meanwhile, around the area, towns are growing into cities and new towns and potential cities are rising. Napier, Hastings, Gisborne and Wairoa are on the southern side of the Urewera, Whakatane and other towns to the east. Inland is Hamilton, Cambridge and Rotorua, with the possibility of new large towns, perhaps a city, at Tokoroa, Kaiangaroa and Murupara. Tauranga is to be developed as a deep sea port. Millions of pounds are to be spent in developing the adjacent soft wood forests of Rotorua and Taupo. It almost seems that a kind providence has preserved this forest to be a future playground for these adjacent large centres of population which must increase in size each year. The North Island will need these forest solitudes and holiday makers of every type will find something to appeal to every one. Guest houses at Waikaremoana and Ruatahuna will cater for tired business men. Hardy trampers will be able to follow the mountain trails or follow the sparkling water down the deep gorges. Fishermen will find excellent sport.

Botanists and ornithologists will have half a million acres to roam over, photographers will be able to click their shutters happily. In certain areas, particularly in the Lakes Waikaremoana and Waikare-iti regions, walking routes could be developed by cutting tracks for tourists that would give hours of happy scenic wandering to those who would like to sample the joys of the forest without the heavy pack carrying that appeals to the hardier tent-pitching tramper. For the exploring tramper large areas could be preserved as wilderness areas. In a vast basin to the North of Lake Waikareiti, at an altitude of 3000 feet is an entrancing region of forest everglades that so far has been seldom visited by any except a few deer-stalkers. Over a range to the west of Waikaremoana is a river of waterfalls which must be unique in the whole of the North Island. It is easy of passage and could be developed as a tramping route as the Milford track is developed in the South. The trip in to Maungapohatu, the great hidden pa of the Tuhoe people is within the capability of any good walker and apart from other attractions the view of the great black mountain and the historic pa, as seen from the eminence Kakare, is one of the greatest views in the North Island. There are two great wildlife problems that have to be faced in the Urewera, the two same problems that are giving concern in other parts of New Zealand’s mountain

and forest country. Deer and opossums present the same great menace to the forests as they do elsewhere. For perhaps twenty years the Department of Internal Affairs has had its hunters continually prowling through a large part of the forest. Thousands of deer have been shot and the numbers materially reduced. The story of the damage done by deer is a tragic one and would fill pages. Yet there are signs of an improvement due to the good work done by the Government hunters and in the last' few years plans have been made that will lead to a far more intensive campaign against deer. The checking of opossums will not prove so easy and these marsupials are present in tens of thousands. Forest authorities in the area. are very worried about the damage being done and realise that present trapping and hunting methods are pitifully inadequate to deal with this tree-top menace. This then is the vast forest land that it is proposed to constitute a National Park and a playground for the people. Here in these halls of Tane, if we can check destroying animals, and prevent fire, men and women centuries hence will still hear the dawn chorus of the birds, will still see the wood pigeon swoop across the valley, will still follow trails that were pioneered in the stone age and will find pleasure, recreation and health.

* The words “Te Urewera” refer to an. injury by burns to part of the chief’s body. Tuhoe was the name of one of the principal ancestors of the tribes. The name “People of the Mist” refers to a legend of the tribes that they are descended from the Mist Maiden who lived on the top of Maungapohatu.—Ed.