and was in shock,” says Te Paa, who luckily had a six-month supply of kawakawa rongoā – a cold-pressed balm made of grapeseed oil, kawakawa and beeswax at hand.

Known as ‘the pharmacy of the forest’, kawakawa is significant and sacred to Māori. It is has extensive healing properties: different sides of the leaf are used for different purposes; it is used internally, externally and spiritually.

In the case of ‘Awhi Awhi’, the 10.5 litres of kawakawa balm was applied to the ringbark lacerations on the tree by Te Paa, Bailie and their children (in their role as local tangata whenua) and then sealed with 12 layers of locally sourced kawakawa leaves.

Since applying the rongoā, sap is flowing from the tree, which is a heartening visual indication, says Bailie, who describes it as a “tohu” and a positive sign of healing.

For now, they’re letting nature take its course. “The less intervention, the better”, says Te Paa.

The controversial resource consent decision by the Auckland Council that grants permission to cut down the significant trees without any public notification is subject to a Judicial Hearing in the Auckland High Court in March this year.

For more information go to www.facebook.com/saveourkauri

T he provocative ring barking of a healthy kauri tree in West Auckland last December hit the national headlines, galvanising many to take action.

While protestor and arborist, Johno Smith, was part of a peaceful ‘sit-in’ above in the forest canopy, a posse of men with chainsaws arrived unannounced below, damaging as much as they could in the shortest period of time. The majestic kauri, nicknamed ‘Awhi Awhi’, was one of a number of trees that had been tagged earlier with spray paint, marked by developers as trees they wanted to cull.

The brazen act was another chapter in a conflict between the land owner and local community, which had been niggling away for months.

Back in March 2015, an earlier protest led to a public backdown by the developers, who promised they wouldn’t chop the kauri, which Dr Cate Macinnis-Ng, a senior Biological Sciences lecturer at Auckland University, has estimated to be 427 years old.

News of the tree attack reverberated throughout the nation’s mainstream and social media. More than 200,000 engaged instantly on Twitter, turning it into a trending topic. A video posted on the ‘Save Our Kauri’ Facebook page reached a staggering 99,000. The public outcry ranged from shock to anger. The police later said it was within the legal right of the owners. Many shook their heads in utter disbelief.

The result was the drawing together of people with different perspectives, political persuasions, ethnic backgrounds and geographical locations, who have rallied around in support of the trees.

Internationally, activist Julia Butterfly Hill, who spent 738 days up a 1500-year-old redwood in California, became an advocate.

Locally, native tree expert Char Bailie and traditional Māori healer and rongoā practitioner Tracey Te Paa, who uses plants for healing and wellbeing, felt so strongly that they decided to partner up and pitch in to help save the damaged tree.

Together, they have helped to stabilise a situation that many had written off; supporting the tree so that it can do its own healing.

There was much discussion after the kauri was ring barked. Arborists suggested grafting as a solution, but Bailie and Te Paa wanted to seal and protect its wounds.

A unanimous decision was finally made to try rongoā to empower the tree to self-heal. “We went with a method that was going to be the least destructive, by opting not to graft,” says Bailie.

Due to the ring barking, the tree “had experienced extreme trauma

A traditional solution to a modern problem

Following the ring barking of a 400-year-old kauri tree in Titirangi, it has been traditional Māori medicine that has put it on the road to healing

Words Sarah Sparks. Photography Jos Wheeler

“We went with a method that was going to be the

least destructive, by opting not to

graft."

Char Bailie

The ring barked kauri has been treated with a cold-pressed kawakawa balm and fresh leaves.

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Social Justice

Understanding the role that trees like kauri Awhi Awhi

play in our daily lives

It would take 80 20-year-old trees to replace the carbon storage capacity o f

400-year-old kauri tree, Awhi Awhi in Titirangi.

F orests provide us with many goods and services that support human life. They absorb CO2 as they grow and trees store this carbon in their stems,

branches, leaves and roots. Forests also play an important role in the water cycle, as transpiration is one of the major pathways through which water returns to the atmosphere after rain. Trees are important for flood mitigation because they collect rainfall on their leaves and buffer water-flow through the landscape. Tree roots are also important for binding the soil and preventing erosion.

“Kauri forests are particularly valuable because they are amongst the most carbon dense forests in the world. A single tree can store vast amounts of carbon and will also use large volumes of water each year,” says Dr Cate Macinnis-Ng, a senior Biological Sciences lecturer at Auckland University.

“To determine the amount of water and carbon a tree uses, we need to know the size of the tree. Awhi Awhi has a diameter at breast height (DBH) of 137cm. Trees of this size generally grow to 40m or more. For this estimate, we have assumed a height of 30m.

Annual water useThe University of Auckland is currently measuring transpiration in kauri trees at the University of Auckland Huapai Scientific reserve. Data has been collected over four years and there is a strong relationship between tree size and the amount of water the tree uses. Based on this relationship (unpublished), a tree of 137cm DBH will use more than 47000 L of water each year. If we assume a bathtub holds 132 L of water, Awhi Awhi uses more than 350 of these bathtubs per year. All of this water will be removed from the soil, thereby reducing the incidence of water-logging and floods.

Biodiversity valueA tree of Awhi Awhi’s size is mature enough to support communities of epiphytes, invertebrates, fungi and microbes. More than 40 species of epiphytes (plants that grow above the ground) have been identified on Tane Mahuta and it is likely that Awhi Awhi would support a similar number in centuries to come, in addition to many species of insects, spiders, mites and other small organisms. As the tree ages, it will provide more habitat for birds as hollows form. g

Facts about trees that

everybody needs

Carbon storageThe amount of carbon stored in a tree is based on the diameter of the trunk and the height of the tree. Following analysis, it is estimated that 5.78t of C stored by this single tree in above ground biomass. This does not include roots or leaves and branches of less than 10cm diameter. “The general rule of thumb is that half of a tree’s biomass is stored underground so we can be confident that Awhi Awhi stores over 11t of carbon in roots, leaves, branches and stem,” says Macinnis-Ng. “In order to calculate the number of trees needed to replace this amount of carbon, I assumed that 20 year old trees have a DBH of 20cm and a height of 15m. Trees of this size only store 72kg of carbon above ground, so 80 trees this size are required to replace a single tree the size of Awhi Awhi.”

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Social Justice