In my Fifth Form year at Dunstan High School, Alexandra, my Biology Teacher was Peter Child. He retired shortly afterwards, and as his Obituary puts it (Pierce, 1986), this was a ‘liberation’! Yes, I was one of the local yokels in a small country town, a posting that must have severely tried the sanity of… Continue reading The Lost Totara Forests of Central Otago
Category: Forests
The Last Tree in Papanui Bush. And that last palm tree on Easter Island
“What did the kiwi bloke say while cutting down the last tree in Papanui Bush?” Here, I’m just re-phrasing of the question Jared Diamond wrote in his 2005 book ‘Collapse’. The original question Diamond posed was: “What did the Easter Islander say while cutting down the last palm tree?” Diamond was trying to make a… Continue reading The Last Tree in Papanui Bush. And that last palm tree on Easter Island
Was there a Forest before Central Otago’s Kowhai Forest?
When humans arrived in New Zealand, a bit over 700 years ago (Wilmshurst et al., 2008; Jacomb et al., 2014), it seems some of the driest parts of the country, in Central Otago, were under low forest, dominated by kowhai (Pole, 2022). Specifically, this was on the lower slopes of the gorges and slopes of… Continue reading Was there a Forest before Central Otago’s Kowhai Forest?
Dunedin’s Saddlebacks/Tieke and Yellowheads/Mopua
Amateur field observations of species can be priceless. A local Dunedin man (Peter Thomson, 1823-1879), using the pen-name ‘Pakeha’, wrote several accounts of his ‘rambles’ around the area between 1864 and 1879. They appeared in Dunedin’s newspapers the Otago Witness and the Otago Daily Times (see articles by the historian Paul Star, 1998, and by… Continue reading Dunedin’s Saddlebacks/Tieke and Yellowheads/Mopua
Green Island Bush – Divide and Conquer
Green Island Bush is a prime example of a large patch of New Zealand indigenous forest that was essentially annihilated in the late nineteenth century. It lay between today’s Green Island suburb, on Dunedin’s Southern Motorway, and the coast. Today the area is mainly farmland. Its original extent is shown partly on Charles Kettle’s 1849… Continue reading Green Island Bush – Divide and Conquer
The Lost Ecosystem of the Leith Swamp Forest, Dunedin
One part of Dunedin is different from the rest…. The Dunedin area is an old volcano. It’s formed mostly from the molten, or semi-molten material that forced its way up from below, or some of the older marine strata that this material pushed its way through. In the few million years since the Dunedin volcano… Continue reading The Lost Ecosystem of the Leith Swamp Forest, Dunedin
Dunedin’s Ghost-Forests in 1901
When a forest is dead, but somehow still there – either as bleached stumps, and felled, and possibly burnt trunks, I call it a ghost-forest. There were vast areas of ghost-forest (or ‘ghost-bush’ if you like) throughout New Zealand in the 19th century (see Envirohistory NZ’s post: ‘Scorched forest farm – Wildbore cache no.7‘ for… Continue reading Dunedin’s Ghost-Forests in 1901
The Lost Bush of South Dunedin
We owe so much of what we know of early Dunedin to just a few artists! Up till 1850, there’s only a dozen or so publicly accessible images of what the place looked like, and four of those, that I know of, are by members of the Valpy family.. William and Caroline Valpy came to… Continue reading The Lost Bush of South Dunedin
Deans Bush–Pūtaringamotu and the Mystery of the Missing Tree Ferns
Tree ferns are indicators of a consistently pretty wet climate. In New Zealand-Aotearoa, if you look closely (and not too closely if you’re driving) as you go over Haast Pass from the Lake Wanaka side to the West Coast, tree ferns go from zero, to abundant. The massive increase in rainfall to the west of… Continue reading Deans Bush–Pūtaringamotu and the Mystery of the Missing Tree Ferns
The Immolation of Waimate Bush, Canterbury, New Zealand
In the court case following the 1878 fire that virtually annihilated Waimate Bush, a witness described the wind conditions as “a hurricane” (The Lyttelton Times, 25 June, 1879). A lawyer, seeking a definition of ‘hurricane’ was given: “a very strong wind indeed; a wind that blew no one any good”. His Honor, Mr Justice Johnston,… Continue reading The Immolation of Waimate Bush, Canterbury, New Zealand