Restoring New Zealand’s lost forests
Visitors to New Zealand (known by the Māori people as Aotearoa) adore the country’s vast, green, rolling pastures, dotted with flocks of woolly sheep. They are undeniably beautiful.
But few outsiders know that this picturesque landscape is, from an environmental viewpoint, all wrong. To make it, 19th-century European colonists cut and burned the forests that once blanketed most of the country. They shipped the timber overseas, planted European grasses, and imported the now-iconic sheep. They believed they were making the land “productive.” But in just a few decades, they destroyed ecosystems that had evolved over eons.
Settlers also brought plants and animals that wreaked havoc on native species. Rabbits were released for food; brushtail possums for a fur trade; deer for sport hunting; and weasels to eat the out-of-control rabbits. Britons released hedgehogs just to remind themselves of home.
These new arrivals quickly did enormous damage on the islands of New Zealand, which had no native terrestrial mammals. Weasel, rats, and hedgehogs ate the eggs and chicks of native ground-nesting birds that had evolved without such predators. They also competed with native birds for seeds, flowers, and invertebrates. Pine trees spread, displacing native forests that wildlife depended on. Dozens of bird species went extinct.
These two catastrophes—deforestation and invasive pests—are still the biggest environmental issues in New Zealand today. Seacology is supporting projects aimed at tackling forest restoration there.
On the North Island, Conservation Volunteers New Zealand is planting native trees and other plants along Papakura Stream. These areas were once covered with forest and wetland, but were cleared for pasture. The stream and its large catchment area are home to threatened native species, including eels and fish. The native tree cover will restore habitat for bird species including the kākā, an endangered parrot. It will also help protect one of New Zealand’s only two native mammals, the long-tailed bat, or pekapeka, which is in danger of extinction.
Our partners plant native vegetation along Papakura Stream.
New Zealand's native plants provide a habitat for brilliantly colored tui birds and other endemic species.
Seacology funded solar power, compostable toilets, and equipment for the native plant nursery. The nursery will produce an amazing 50,000 plants each year for ongoing reforestation.
On the South Island, the Mana Tāhuna Charitable Trust is restoring habitat along Mill Creek. Tearing out invasive trees and planting natives is backbreaking work, but it will have big benefits for wildlife. Mill Creek is a vital spawning ground for declining numbers of native fish species. This project links sections of already restored creekside, creating a corridor for native birds, lizards, and other wildlife. There are other benefits as well. The native plants have strong roots that hold the creek banks together and intercept nutrients, keeping them from polluting the lake that the stream flows into.
Mana Tāhuna represents the traditional Māori guardians of the area. They work to preserve both the ecological and cultural health of the area—an approach Seacology is happy to support.
Mary Randolph is Seacology’s program manager.