Xanthe White talks plants
Kauri: our native giant under threat
Q I’m trying to understand the scale of time over which you have existed. Looking up at a young tree like you is so humbling: to think that you could still be standing here when I have long passed and after 10 more generations have been born. To consider how the world has changed in the last several hundred years and how much it will and won’t change in a thousand to come. Then I think of the scale of your structure and form: your height, volume and girth. You are the most gentle giant to stand on the earth. In your limbs epiphytes cling. Your bark flakes to the ground, covering your spreading roots. And as you head upwards, you will shed branches the size of the trees in my garden! A slow-moving, invincible force whose predecessors lived 140 million years ago.
A Yes it’s true; time has been kind to us. We have lived through ice ages and warmer periods. We need warmth, in fact, and much of Aotearoa is too cool for us so we prefer its northern reaches. Running along the ridges and warm banks in forests amongst many other trees, we occupy the roughest terrain. We hold the life of the soil in our wood so leave behind the poorest of clay, stripped of nutrient. Despite our tall mast of a trunk, our roots do not sit deep but lie in a series of networks on the surface of the soil, like a woven web. This has allowed us to create our own soil ecology that sustains beneficial fungi known to you as mycorrhiza, which help us to absorb nitrogen with great efficiency. The bark we shed as we grow and our leaves, too – all return to this ecology.
This balance has sustained us for many millions of years. But for the last few hundred years it has felt as though our time may be up. In what to us is just a moment we lost over 90 per cent of our lands to supply timber across the world so now the generations of people that live no longer remember how great our forests once were. With so few of us left and most of the elders gone, we are now facing a new threat that we fear could finish us off for good. Perhaps your children’s generation will tell their children about the forests that once stood. Perhaps you will be witness to the end of one of the longest reigns on earth. Because within our roots a small organism, a phytophthora invisible to the human eye, is infecting our
mauri or wellness. And once it takes over, there is little chance of survival. Over the last centuries we have been struck by fire and the saw – and now weakened we have little defence against such diseases. Even in the forest where the revered Tane Mahuta lives, in Northland, this enemy lurks, and is slowly moving towards the feet of our eldest.
Q What can we do? Especially as it has been on our watch that your domain has become so diminished. We lament social media posts about the last orangutans, or the diminishing territories of rhinos or tigers, while right here one of the greatest giants that has ever lived is threatened with extinction. This is in our hands.
A Yes, but perhaps replanting may breed new generations, and perhaps we could be offered protection? We ask only that you walk gently at our feet, and keep your feet clean; this lethal organism moves in the water and soil and as you travel through our forests it can be spread unknowingly. And still we are felled to make room for development. We would ask too for an amnesty until at least we know what hope there is for our survival. Perhaps we could be granted a special covenant, even if for a short time? We cannot afford to lose any more of our number now. There is precedent – look at the protections that have been offered to whales. Speak for us. Fight for us. We represent the mauri, the wellness of your forests that your nation takes great pride in, that brings you tourism, and mana. Don’t be a witness to our extinction. There are millions of you, and if everyone took action, however small, perhaps there is hope. It has been done before for others. The giants of the sea are under your protection. Do the same for the giants of your forest.