The country’s largest trees, kauri are threatened by dieback and climate change. But there is hope for the revered species
Look out at the forest of Waitakere and you will see the skeleton of Aunt Agatha above the treeline. The tree – who gained her nickname from generations of schoolchildren – was still alive and topped with a proud plume of foliage just a few years ago. Now the trunk stands white as an exposed bone, huge ribbons of bark sloughed off on the ground like recently shed skin.
Ranger Stuart Leighton walks down an empty track toward her, stepping on to the large, freshly completed wooden deck. It’s kind of unusual, he says, to build a viewing platform for a dead tree. “We wanted to make a point: this isn’t some made-up thing, or something that’s not serious or something on a tiny little scale that we’re overcooking. This is a very real thing that’s happening to our forest.”
