Rainforest resoration
Te Urewera Rainforest Restoration Project
The Te Urewera Rainforest Restoration Project is the result of a chance meeting between Andrew Morten and Joe Doherty in 2007. Seated next to each other at lunch at the New Zealand travel fair TRENZ, the talk soon turned to trees. Andrew was seeking a place for the clients of TravelEssence to plant trees. Joe was seeking trees to plant on Maori owned lands that had been subjected to large scale milling of the largest and most precious podocarp trees like rimu, matai, miro, totara and kahikatea. Perfect.
In 2008 the Te Urewera Rainforest Restoration Project was born, with the first trees planted in November 2008. Since that time the project has focused on planting and managing these native podocarp trees in areas where they have been milled and have not regenerated.
As of 7 August 2011 our manuhiri (visitors) have planted 1851 trees, and more than NZ$9,000 has been donated towards the ongoing maintenance of these trees through watering, fencing and pest control.
Update: 2020, we have now reached over 13,000 Native tree's planted!
Our Tree planting Areas (GPS coordinates and Google maps reference)
2014 - 2016
38°35'57.7"S 176°51'20.5"E -38.599360, 176.855706
2016 - 2018
38°36'00.6"S 176°51'22.7"E -38.600153, 176.856295
2019 - 2020
38°35'42.2"S 176°51'29.7"E -38.595041, 176.858254