The Redwoods - Whakarewarewa Forest

History

Today the Redwoods and Whakarewarewa Forest is an important feature of the Rotorua landscape providing an exquisite backdrop to Rotorua city. The forest is also an amazing and convenient recreational resource for the community and a draw card for tourists who enjoy the outdoors.

However there is much more to the forest than recreation alone. Local Maori have an affiliation with the land in this area and it is steeped with historical meaning.

Development of the forest over time has also played an important role in the New Zealand forest industry and continues to do so with the greater part of the forest being a productive plantation forest, where all facets of the plantation management cycle can be seen from time to time.

A brief look into the history of the forest…

<1886

The land on which the Whakarewarewa Forest now stands was bare of trees, except for a small area of native bush capping the highest hills above the Blue Lake and one or two pockets elsewhere. Like most of the land in the vicinity of Rotorua it was covered in flax, fern, tussock and shrubs such as manuka, tutu and coprosmas.

A Maori settlement called Te Whakarewarewa Tanga o te Ope Taua a Wahiao – (the place where the war party of Waihiao (a Te Arawa chief) performed) lived in the area. Over the centuries many villages may have been spread among the hills.