Next to the Hutiwai forest that supporters of this Trust helped us to buy in 2024, there is a second forest. 604 hectares of mature native bush that has never been cleared, and that nobody is actively looking after. The sale is agreed, conditional on our raising $1,250,000 by 27 May 2027. If we raise it, the forest is ours to protect and manage, and the whole block will go forward for QEII protection after settlement. If we do not, it returns to the open market.
A forest older than the one next door
Tawa and kāmahi, with beech running through. Rewarewa, hīnau and rimu along the drier ridges. Down in the gully bottoms, kahikatea and pukatea, trees that were already old when the first ships arrived. The nationally threatened king fern grows here, along with whau, mangeao and tānekaha. Bush falcon has been recorded overhead.
It is older and larger than Hutiwai itself, in good condition, despite facing many of the same pressures from pests and weeds.
Hutiwai Stage 2 lies immediately west of the existing Hutiwai Reserve
Kiwi call here at night
North Island brown kiwi live through this forest and the conservation land around it. It is not a safe place to be a kiwi. Without predator control, about six chicks in every hundred live to become adults, and the population falls two to three per cent every year. Stoats do most of it.
If we secure the property, we would work with Taranaki Kiwi Trust to extend large-scale protection trapping across the block, linking into the community trapping already happening on neighbouring land.
A wealth of wildlife
Yellow-crowned kākāriki are here too, once common across New Zealand and now rare, and highly vulnerable to the same predators. Pekapeka, long-tailed bats, are also found in the forest around the property.
Why this block, and not some other
When supporters helped us buy Hutiwai in 2024, 43 hectares of pine plantation had recently been felled. Restoring land like this is not simply a matter of planting trees or waiting for seed to arrive. Natural regeneration depends on having nearby seed sources, but also on controlling browsing animals, weeds and other pressures so native seedlings have the chance to establish and grow. This block is an important part of that picture. Its mature forest provides a local seed source alongside the areas we are restoring, while our ongoing pest and weed control helps create the conditions for that regeneration to succeed. Buying it would bring 604 hectares of old forest into conservation ownership, right against the ground we are restoring.
Together the two blocks would make one conservation holding of more than 1,000 hectares. A single forest instead of two, with far less exposed edge for wind, weeds and browsing animals to work on.
Nobody is looking after it
This is private freehold land, and on the open market anyone could buy it. Thoughtlessness, insensitivity and greed can destroy in a few hours what it took nature centuries to create.
The best protection you can offer any piece of land is to own it and manage it as a nature reserve. If we buy this forest, the whole 604 hectares will go forward for QEII protection after settlement. Our intention is that every property the Trust buys is permanently protected through the QEII National Trust. Once a covenant is approved and registered, it runs with the land rather than with us and has no end date.
We would also be on the ground every year: controlling goats, pigs and deer that hold back regeneration, carrying out predator control for kiwi and other native wildlife, and controlling weeds that smother native seedlings.
What your gift protects
This land costs $2,069 a hectare. Hutiwai cost nearly twice that, so the same gift now helps secure about twice as much forest as it did at Hutiwai.
| A gift of | Protects |
|---|---|
| $99 | Nearly 480 square metres |
| $199 | Close to 1,000 square metres |
| $995 | Nearly half a hectare |
| $3,975 | Almost 2 hectares |
| $19,875 | Almost 10 hectares |
However much you are able to give will help, and any amount can be entered on the donation page.
Larger gifts protect land at the same rate. $20,690 protects ten hectares; $51,725 protects twenty-five. If you are considering a larger gift, we would be very happy to talk with you about the property first. Please email admin@nfrt.org.nz.
What "for ever" means
Our intention is that every property the Trust buys is permanently protected through the QEII National Trust, an independent body set up by Parliament in 1977 to protect land that remains in private ownership. Once approved and registered, the covenant runs with the land rather than with us, and it has no end date.
From that point, the future of the forest is no longer dependent on the decisions of a future Trust board or owner. Neither can that protection be undone by a change of government or a rewritten district plan. The covenant runs with the land permanently.
That is why we can say that once this forest is covenanted, it is protected for all New Zealanders, for ever.
Thank you
Forty-six years of this work has been paid for by people like you, one gift at a time. Nine thousand hectares across more than 40 reserves, all protected for all New Zealanders, for ever.
