Waipoua Forest and mighty kauri trees, agathis australis | New Zealand

Waipoua Forest preserves some of the best examples of kauri forest remaining in New Zealand. It is notable for having two of the largest living kauri trees, Tane Mahuta and Te Matua Ngahere. The forest was declared a sanctuary in 1952. A community based volunteer organization, the Waipoua Forest Trust, helps maintain the forest. The Waipoua, Warawara and Puketi Forests together contain about three quarters of New Zealand's remaining mature kauri trees. The Waipoua forest holds the largest remaining stand of these trees. It contains Te Matua Ngahere, a notable kauri tree that is the largest in New Zealand by girth and the second largest by volume, and is estimated to be from 2,000 to 3,000 years old.

In 1907 the Waipoua Forest, the Warawara forest and one or two other smaller reserves were the only virgin kauri forests left belonging to the state. In 1913 a Royal Commission on Forestry recommended that a specially selected area of 0.8 km² of the Waipoua forest, and the whole of the Warawara Forest of 50 km², be established as national kauri forests for the people of New Zealand. In 1926 a road was put through Waipoua Forest with the purpose of providing an approach to the lands of neighboring settlers. In the late 1960s, in violation of the 1913 recommendations, adopted de facto, the National Government initiated clear felling in the Warawara forest. This was not stopped until 1972!!! following a large public outcry and fulfillment of an election promise of the incoming Labor Government. In this short period, approximately 1/5 of the forest was felled (about 1/4 by timber volume).

Kauri forests are among the most ancient in the world. The antecedents of the kauri appeared during the Jurassic period (between 190 and 135 million years ago). Agathis australis can attain heights of 40 to 50 metres and trunk diameters big enough to rival Californian sequoias at over 5 metres. The largest kauri trees did not attain as much height or girth at ground level but contain more timber in their cylindrical trunks than comparable Sequoias with their tapering stems. The largest recorded specimen was known as The Great Ghost and grew in the mountains at the head of the Tararu Creek, which drains into the Hauraki Gulf just north of the mouth of the Waihou River (Thames). Thames Historian Alastair Isdale says the tree was 8.54 metres in diameter, and 26.83 metres in girth. It was consumed by fire c.1890.

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