The little town that refused to die
People poured out of Tapawera a quarter of a century ago. In the nine months up to Christmas 1987, several dozen families left. The township beside the Motueka River almost died.
The cause of this exodus was the government’s decision to sell its forest interests. Tapawera was the main residential and service centre for Golden Downs, the South Island’s largest exotic forest. State entity the NZ Forest Service owned half the houses in town. Most residents relied on the forest for work or for customers in their businesses. And then the government swung the axe.
Former forest worker Gary Hillerby, now a school bus driver, says ‘‘the impact was disastrous’’ for the town.
‘‘So many were made redundant. It was a great shock. Many did not know what to do. We knew it was coming. The government of the day said it was going to change things. And it happened. But it was still a big shock. It affected over 100, easily, and most had families,’’ Hillerby says.
The chop came in March. The forest workers received redundancy cheques, which enabled them to buy homes elsewhere. Most found jobs in other places and were gone within nine months, he says.
Meanwhile, the Housing Corporation took over responsibility for the former Forest Service houses, built in the 1960s on a network of new streets all bearing the names of native trees. Hillerby and the few other workers who ‘‘stuck it out’’ were offered the opportunity to buy their houses. Land prices had slumped so the Housing Corporation was offering favourable deals. The buildings were sturdy and solid.
Hillerby bought his house and is in it still. He has never regretted staying.
Surprisingly, few Tapawera residents have anything to do with forestry today. Millions of trees still grow on the thousands of hectares of Golden Downs. But private enterprise now owns and manages the forest. Hillerby says logging is a 24-hour operation carried out by contract firms and contract labour. Nearly all the workers come from larger towns like Wakefield and Motueka, while the logs are carted to mills at Richmond, Hope and Motueka, and the port at Nelson.
The Golden Downs village camp, a dozen kilometres up the Motueka River from Tapawera, has long been closed and its buildings removed. Little evidence of its former existence remain. A large forestry depot, with offices and yards, across the Motueka River from Tapawera, stands empty and forlorn.
Hillerby says the outflow of forest workers in 1987 was matched in subsequent years by an influx of beneficiaries and lowincome people seeking affordable housing. ‘‘It was not good for the town,’’ he says. ‘‘But things got better. The government tightened up on benefits. Sales picked up, new people came. Now all the houses are owned and lived in. It’s a great wee place now. It’s really taking off.’’
Newlife:
Many Tapawera residents work ‘‘over the hill’’. The hill is the Spooner Range, beyond which lies the bustling light-industrial and processing centre of Richmond and the city of Nelson – both within an hour’s drive.
Hillerby says Tapawera people are resilient. Their town was hit when the Nelson railway was closed in 1955. It was hit again when tobacco farming collapsed. The loss of forestry staff might have been the killer blow, but the town has bounced back. Key elements are diversity in farming (hops, cows, raspberries, sheep and cattle, deer, bees, goats, potatoes, blackcurrants), people setting up small computer-based ventures at home, a flourishing arts and crafts scene, and roading improvements that make commuting easier.
Hillerby refuses to lament the end of the railway. He was sad to see it go but also remembers travelling by train from his home at nearby Kiwi to Nelson as a boy – ‘‘very slow, half a day each way, covered in dust, soot and grime’’. Neither will he lament the end of the forestry era.
Barbara Carleton, of the Tapawera Historical Association, sees a plus in the railway’s demise. Planning is under way to reopen the railway tunnel under the Spooner Range (walking trips can be arranged now) and extend the Nelson-Richmond cycleway to Tapawera, she says. It is hoped the cycleway can then follow the Motueka River to Motueka, to connect with the cycleway through Mapua and complete a grand circle tour of the Nelson region.
Tapawera will not forget the railway, or the protests at its closure. Images of redoubtable activist Sonja Davies and eight other women staging a sit-in on the rails at Kiwi to prevent them being ripped up are in the former Kiwi station, that now stands in the heart of Tapawera as a museum.
Tapawera will not forget its forestry heritage, either. It is comfortable with its past, because it is certain of its future.