The Passing of the Forest by Richard Wolfe

In The Passing of the Forest, cultural and art historian Richard Wolfe has written a compelling visual history of the native trees of New Zealand and their fate at the hands of humans from the 19th century until today, and compared this to what is happening to the Australian bush. His narrative is richly illustrated with over 50 historical and contemporary artworks by well- known New Zealand and Australian artists.

Richard Wolfe tells how, when Aotearoa separated from the Gondwana supercontinent about 85 million years ago, 80% of it was clothed in dense forest, and for millions of years the forest remained relatively undisturbed until humans arrived.

But from the time humans settled here, first from East Polynesia around 1300 AD and later from Europe in the mid-19th century, they had a lasting impact on the nature and extent of the original forest cover.

Māori revered the forest as Te-Waonui-a-Tāne (the great forest of Tāne). It provided them with food, shelter and timber for their carvings. Yet it is estimated that over a period of some 500 years, the indigenous forest cover was reduced from about 80 % to 50%.

It now seems likely, writes Richard Wolfe, that hunters deliberately set fire to the bush to flush out game birds, particularly the moa, and that such fires often got out of hand. Fires used to clear bracken-covered land on the fringes of the bush could also get out of control.

When European settlers arrived, they viewed the forest differently. They saw the plentiful supply of timber as theirs to use and exploit for commercial gain, so they had no compunction about cutting down trees and using the timber (especially kauri) to supply a lucrative export trade and for local construction and shipbuilding.

They also burnt the bush to clear the land before converting it into paddocks and pastures. But these bush burns not infrequently got out of control.  Margaret Stoddart’s painting BushFire, Paraparaumu (1908), a ghostly scene of gaunt trunks shrouded in billowing smoke, is horrifying. After 200 years of European settlement the forests had dwindled even further to 24.8 %.

Richard Wolfe has devoted a whole chapter to the majestic kauri, one of the three main types of New Zealand forest, which suffered most at the hands of the settlers from Europe in the 19th century as they rapaciously felled the seemingly inexhaustable supply of timber.

As early as 1843 Ernst Dieffenbach expressed shock at the reckless destruction of Kauri forest in Whangaroa, noting “It is utterly impossible to make good the damage done”. If only the government had heeded his words at the time more kauri may have been saved. it was not until September1885 that the extremely wasteful use over the previous 50 years of this valuable natural resource was officially acknowledged and the State Forest Act introduced by Sir Julius Vogel was passed.

For artists, Kauri were a favourite subject. The best- known early images of Kauri by a European artist were created by Charles Heaphy. His paintings, including one of a team of sawyers felling majestic kauri on the Banks of the Kaipara river, had a promotional purpose and were aimed to lure Britons to New Zealand where they would be able to profit from the seemingly inexhaustible supply of excellent timber.

But not long after milling began, melancholy scenes of partly destroyed forests and fallen logs became a popular theme, especially for photographers.

Gumdigging also harmed kauri. This inspired Auckland artist Frank Wright to create a painting called Gumdigging (1889) which shows a pair of gum diggers and a few dead trees standing out gaunt and bare against the sky.

Over a period of 40 years Charles Blomfield, entranced and awed by their beauty, painted many romantic images of kauri including his stunning masterpiece ‘The vaulted isles of nature’s cathedral.’(1921).

In Taking Stock, a later chapter, Richard Wolfe tells how some contemporary artists have perceived the wanton destruction of the bush.

Researching family history took Shane Foley back to the burnt and blackened landscapes of eastern Taranaki of the late 19th century.

Richard Wolfe describes how in her painting Ghost Forest ( 2009) ‘a rough track passes through a shattered forest of trunks sawn off near ground level, while the gaunt limbs, devoid of leaves reach out as if for help, in all a scene of utter desolation overseen by the snow-capped mountain.’

Emily Karaka, while she was on a residency at the McCahon House in Titirangi, painted Te Kawerau ā Maki , in which she expressed her concern about kauri dieback disease through a Māori, political, environmental lens.

In recent years there has been a growing awareness of the need to conserve what is left of our native forests and the need to plant more native trees. We need such trees because they prevent global warming by absorbing and storing carbon-dioxide and they play a crucial role in the ecosystem as providers of wildlife habitats and food sources for our endemic species. Organizations and community groups are Standing up for Nature and working to achieve this.

But our native trees are now facing new threats. Kauri dieback is taking a toll. And as climate change continues and temperatures rise, forests have become more combustible and vulnerable to wildfires. While New Zealand’s fires have yet to reach the scale of the catastrophic blazes across the Tasman they are becoming more common here too.

As Richard Wolfe writes so eloquently at the end of his book:

'New Zealand’s native bush and plant life in general has now withstood some 800 years of human intervention, from the cutting and destruction of forests by axe and fire, the introduction of introduced pests and pathogens and more recently,  the threat of wildfire exacerbated by human-induced climate change. In terms of their survival in the face of such ongoing challenges, it has to be said that the forests of New Zealand are not out of the woods yet.’

The Passing of the Forest is a wake-up call that we should all heed and do all we can to  conserve what little is left of our precious native bush and plant life and to plant more native trees. This highly informative and beautiful book will surely help with that.

Reviewer: Lyn Potter

Oratia Press