Kōrero: Volcanic Plateau region

Whārangi 9. From rimu and tōtara to pinus radiata

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Native timber

The native timber of the Volcanic Plateau came mainly from massive conifers – tōtara, rimu, mataī and miro. The area’s native wood was first exploited by Europeans in the late 19th century, in the Mamaku Range and around the northern shores of Lakes Rotorua and Rotoiti.

The Taupo Totara Timber Company built the first of three timber mills at Mōkai in 1898 and completed a private railway to Putaruru in 1905. Until the late 1930s, the timber industry was probably the biggest employer in Rotorua, and there were about 30 mills around Taupō by the 1940s.

Exotic trees

The Whakarewarewa nursery, near Rotorua, was set up in 1898 to provide timber trees for the Auckland district, and ornamental plants for Rotorua.

Non-native trees were planted on a large scale first at Whakarewarewa, then at Waiotapu, and from 1913 on the Kāingaroa plateau. The land was thought to be unsuitable for farming. Pinus radiata (radiata pine) and Douglas fir were the most successful trees.

A fine send-off

Keepa Te Piki was killed in a logging accident in 1931. After the tangi (funeral), his coffin was placed on one of the timber barges. With almost 200 friends and relatives on board, flags at half-mast and a band playing appropriate music, a launch towed the boat on a circuit of the lake, eventually anchoring off Motutawa , where he was buried.

Planting the plateau

Pine planting gained impetus after the First World War. On the western margins of the plateau, two Sydney investors bought land and established Perpetual Forests (later New Zealand Forest Products).

The New Zealand Forest Service favoured planting exotic trees to counter the depletion of native timber. Leon McIntosh Ellis, its first head, noted that between 1900 and 1920, a million acres (over 400,000 hectares) of native trees had been felled but only 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares) planted in non-natives. Forest plantings on the Kāingaroa Plateau, as far south as the Napier–Taupō road, rose steeply after 1925. In 1929–30, the peak year, almost 14,000 hectares were planted with 22 million trees.

A new industry

Partly for demonstration purposes, and partly to make use of Whakarewarewa and Kāingaroa timber, a mill was built at Waipā and had its first commercial run in June 1940. A training centre at Whakarewarewa became the Forestry Research Institute.

After the Second World War, the 1920s plantings started to reach maturity. Tasman Pulp and Paper built a plant at Kawerau, in the eastern Bay of Plenty, for which Murupara was the logging centre. New Zealand Forest Products set up a similar factory at Kinleith, near Tokoroa. The Forestry Research Institute expanded after 1960, when it became part of the New Zealand Forest Service.

For young and old

Cutting rights to the Kāingaroa Forest today are managed on behalf of two very different multi-billion-dollar investors. Harvard Management is the investment arm of the Harvard University endowment fund. The New Zealand Superannuation Fund bought a minority interest in the forest in October 2006.

After 1980

The industry changed rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s. The Forest Service was disbanded in 1987, and state-owned forests were sold to private interests.

In the 2000s, Māori trusts owned some forests, and others were the subject of tribal claims to the Waitangi Tribunal. Cutting rights to the Kāingaroa Forest are managed by a global investment management firm, and the Waipā mill is owned by a Rotorua investor.

Between 1986 and 1991, the number of forestry jobs in the region (including at Tokoroa and Kawerau) fell by nearly a third, to around 2,500. In 2006 there were fewer trees than 10 years earlier – logging can be more profitable than replanting – and the forestry labour force had fallen to 1,500.

The Forestry Research Institute is now SCION, a Crown research institute. The Radi Centre offers diplomas in wood manufacturing excellence, with the aim of building up skills to produce more forest-based industries.

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārangi:

Malcolm McKinnon, 'Volcanic Plateau region - From rimu and tōtara to pinus radiata', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/mi/volcanic-plateau-region/page-9 (accessed 28 March 2024)

He kōrero nā Malcolm McKinnon, i tāngia i te 1 Nov 2007, updated 1 May 2015