3 minute read
Awahuri Forest-Kitchener Park
On the outskirts of Feilding lies the last remnants of an ancient wetland forest that used to dominate the Manawatū District.
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If you stroll through Awahuri Forest-Kitchener Park to the southwest of Feilding, it’s easy to think other than the boardwalk slabs beneath your feet, it otherwise has been untouched by human development.
The reserve is an almost 14 hectare publicly accessible park that lies upstream near the banks of the Oroua River and is straddled by the Makino and Mangaone West streams. Manawatū District Council has an agreement with the Department of Conservation to be responsible for the ongoing protection, control, management and development of the Scenic Reserve.
“We’ve got trees in that park that are older than the Magna Carta,” says Awahuri Forest Kitchener Park Trust (AF/KP Trust ) acting chair Chris Symonds.
The trees he speaks of are well over 800 years old.
Prior to European settlement in Feilding, local Iwi Ngāti Kauwhata settled in this area in the early 1800s and the forest holds significance for them. The original floodplain created environmental conditions for lowland semi-swamp podocarp forest to thrive.
The reserve has very high biodiversity values. Canopy tree species include pukatea, totara, kahikatea, matai, hinau, pōkākā and tawa. Other trees include kowhai and titoki.
However, the reserve had been left to its own fate for much of the 20th century. The environment and the ecosystems they support are now rare in Manawatū due to changed land use since European settlers arrived. It’s no small miracle that this small piece of land avoided deforestation. “The forest has been completely messed around with by humanity. The Mangaone Stream gets blocked by the Makino Stream in
flooding. The forest actually needs flooding, but when the water doesn’t drain out quickly and it stagnates, infects trees with fungi, molds and even drowns trees,” trust member Bessie Nicholls says.
Severe atypical flooding events have occurred regularly since 2004, which has set restoration work back. But the Trust has come up with a plan to mitigate the impacts of atypical flooding by purchasing a block of farmland adjacent to the reserve and turning it into a buffering type wetland.
“We want people to be able to enjoy the park. It has an absolutely fascinating history and biodiversity that is unique. For example, we have a spider in this forest that is only found here. Nowhere else in New Zealand, let alone the world and that’s pretty special,” Bessie says. Chris says that visitors can do their part by ensuring they stay on the boardwalk, keep dogs on leads and don’t go wandering off the tracks. “It’s a very sensitive eco-system in the forest and we often see people walking through areas that aren’t part of the track and so if you’re visiting here we’d just like to remind people to stick to the boardwalk and track areas because it helps to preserve the work we’ve done and the forest can continue to heal itself,” he says. GOLDEN TIME
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