Hinewai Reserve - Example of Reverting Native
Ekos Newsletter – Educational Piece
Dr Sean Weaver, CEO
- Image from hikingscenery.com
I read with interest the latest Pīpipi Newsletter from Hinewai and it was wonderful to learn of the expansion of the reserve to include the Mundy Block. I lived and volunteered at the lower house (Ōtānerito) for about 6 months back in the 1990s and the Mundy Block was just across the valley and at a time when Hinewai was much smaller than it is today.
This was still during the time when Hugh Wilson was being resolutely criticised by many for having the preposterous notion that native forest could regenerate beneath gorse and that the best management strategy was to protect the gorse and let nature run its course. Native regeneration through this exotic shrub has proven itself many times over at Hinewai and Hugh’s vision was worth sticking to in the face of the nay-sayers.
If the management strategy at Hinewai was to clear the gorse and then plant native trees and shrubs on the cleared sites the cost would have been prohibitive and Hinewai would not have succeeded or expanded because the cost intensive approach would have gobbled up all the money for a small corner of “perfection”. Hugh understood that by adding the ingredient of patience combined with an understanding of how indigenous vegetation can interact with exotic species, the dream of a landscape scale reserve could come true. And it has come true, which is a testament to Hugh’s middle path.
On the newly acquired Mundy Block there is a stand of macrocarpa – an exotic tree plantation that would ideally be native forest. In the latest Pīpipi Newsletter Hugh points out that the macrocarpas are not thriving, and are not old enough for a timber harvest. “One the other hand”, he says “left standing as old dead wood, they foster rapid regeneration of native forest and fauna. That’s our goal.”
I have faced a similar financial conundrum as Hugh when responding to the call to action on the climate emergency, where we need to recloak the land with trees to build a climate-resilient landscape, and also use these trees to soak up lots and lots of carbon dioxide and turn it into their living bodies and soils. Like the conundrum for Hugh at Hinewai, mine was also a financial challenge. I found that reforesting the land with native forests was prohibitively expensive even when including revenue from carbon credits. Instead of quitting on this call to action, I had to find a middle path so that the vision of native forest restoration at scale could go from a dream to a reality. This middle path was to use exotic trees like eucalyptus, redwood, macrocarpa, alder, and oak in the reforestation mix. Exotics tend to grow much more quickly than natives and are much cheaper to establish. This meant that revenue from carbon credits is enough to cover all of these forest establishment and management costs.
Instead of just planting exotics for a plantation and harvest cycle, we only plant enough exotic forest area to cross subsidise the planting of native forest areas in the same venture. In addition, we manage the exotic forest without clear-felling, and instead use continuous cover forest management methods. This enables the project to keep a forest canopy whilst removing small groups of trees and replanting in an on-going cycle that creates a mosaic of different-aged forest areas. This continuous cover forestry approach allows us to harvest groups of exotic trees and replant with native trees, so that we can transition an exotic forest to a native forest gradually through time. This will take many decades, just as Hinewai has taken many decades to transition an exotic gorse landscape into a native one.
We are very proud of Hugh Wilson and the Maurice White Trust for their vision and perseverance in the face of initial ridicule. One day we hope some future generations will have a chance to enjoy the native forests that we are establishing now with the financial help of exotics.