Background

In 1954, the many owners of the marginal land surrounding Te Kao reached an agreement with the Crown. This agreement consolidated their interests into a single 16,300 hectare Pārengarenga Toopu scheme. During the consolidation, the Crown invoked provisions of the 1953 Māori Affairs Act to compulsorily acquire the interests of owners that were not part of the consolidation agreement. Most of these land parcels were valued at less than 50 pounds sterling. By 1960, the number of landowners had reduced from 1190 to 125. Not only did this acquisition process dispossess most owners, but it also gave the Crown 61.4% of the shares in the scheme. They had control of the Toopi scheme. 

 

Pārengarenga A block was part of the Pārengarenga Toopu scheme. Pārengarenga B3C was not.

​

Location

The Pārengarenga A Block is located west of the settlement of Te Kao. It covers an area of approximately 6,200 hectares. The southern boundary is the Te Arai Reserve and the block extends approximately 11 kilometres along Te Oneroa-a-Tōhe (Ninety Mile Beach), terminating 2 kilometres north of the Waikanae stream. The width of the block varies from between 3 to 4 kilometres.

​

Crown Forest Lease Negotiated

Prior to the mid 1960’s, Pārengarenga A block was mainly raw, moving sand dunes. These were buffeted by the prevailing westerly winds. There were some patches of native vegetation around existing lakes and water ways. Several more thousand hectares of this same land type extended south from the Pārengarenga A boundary down the beach as far as Waipapakauri and north to beyond the Te Paki stream.

 

The moving sand from this large tract of unproductive land was beginning to threaten existing farmland and roading infrastructure along the Aupōuri peninsula.

 

In 1962, a government department (the New Zealand Forest Service) commenced a large exotic afforestation programme in the Waipapakauri area. This is at the southern end of the peninsula near Awanui.

After consultation with local iwi, it was agreed that the new forest would be called Aupōuri.

The objective of establishing the forest was 3-fold:

1. To protect farmland from sand encroachment.

2. To provide employment for the local population.

3. Provide a timber resource for the future

The sand was stablilised by planting marram grass. The flatter country was planted by using either farm tractors or by a medium-sized bulldozer towing a six-man planter machine. The steeper dunes were hand planted. The marram was fertilised by using the farm tractors. The following year lupin seed was also sown. Lupin was used to fix nitrogen in the sand to provide nutrients for the future tree crop. The marram and lupin areas were then left to grow to form a thick carpet. This stopped the sand from moving. In the fourth or fifth year after establishing the marram, the areas were planted with pinus radiata seedlings.

Local kaumatua from Te Kao visited the Waipapakauri operation soon after it began. They were impressed with the development and began negotiations with the government with a view to developing an exotic forest on the Pārengarenga A block.

After a long period of negotiation, the parties agreed to a lease with a term of 99 years. This was equivalent to three rotations of pine trees. The opportunity for future employment for the local population was a major reason for the Incorporation agreeing to the lease.

Under the terms of the lease Pārengarenga Incorporation would receive:

• Annual rental of 5 cents per acre.

• 18.15% of the value realized from the tree crop at harvest time.

 

The lease was signed at Potahi Marae on 18 December 1969 by representatives of Pārengarenga Incorporation and the Minister of Forests, Duncan McIntyre. At the time, the Crown still held 61.4% of the shares in Pārengarenga A.

The block became part of the Aupōuri State Forest and the headquarters were located at Waipapakauri. A Te Kao subdivision was created with an office and storage sheds. Three houses for staff were built near Te Kao.

Forest management

The first tree planting took place in 1967. This was around Lake Wahakari in an area that had been covered in scrub. Tree planting began on the sand areas which had been stabilized by marram grass 4-5 years earlier.

The winter tree and marram planting programmes provided employment for between thirty and forty whanui from the local settlements of Te Hapua and Te Kao. Some of the workers were farmers, who hired out their tractors for the marram grass planting. The work force reduced to around 15 persons in the summer months. In 1974, wahine (women) were employed to assist with the marram grass hand and machine planting. This was one of the first times women were employed to carry out forest operations in New Zealand.

Planting of the lease was completed in the early 1980s. All of the blocks were subsequently thinned, and some were pruned. Harvesting of the first rotation began in 1997 and continued until completion in 2014.
 

Changes to the lease

In 1986 the Crown indicated that it intended to disestablish the New Zealand Forest Service and transfer all state forests into a State-Owned Enterprise (SOE). This would have included Aupōuri Forest and the Pārengarenga A lease.

A Waitangi Tribunal claim was lodged. The aim was to prevent the transfer of any Māori Land, or any land under Treaty of Waitangi claim, to the proposed SOE. The claim was successful. The issue of the Pārengarenga A lease was also raised in the Muriwhenua Land Claim which was being heard around the same time.

The Crown agreed to separate The Pārengarenga A lease forest area from Aupōuri forest. They engaged resource to manage the lease area.

In 1988, after a long period of negotiation, the Crown agreed to return the compulsorily acquired shares to Pārengarenga Incorporation.

In 1999 the Crown agreed to vary the lease to allow for:

• The progressive surrender of harvested areas to the owners - three years following establishment of the second crop.

• An agreement to continue to manage both the Māori owners and the Crown’s areas of the forest.

• The surrender of the lease by 30 June 2016.

 

Recent history

Pārengarenga Incorporation took over full management of Pārengarenga A forest in 2015. Since 2017, the Incorporation has engaged their own staff to manage all of their forest operations. 

Harvest of the second rotation began in January 2023, using new machinery owned by the Incorporation and operated by their staff.