kauri

As Kauri são árvores impressionantes quer pelo seu tamanho como pela sua longevidade. São a segunda maior árvore do mundo, ficando apenas atrás das sequoias (Sequoia sempervirens). Estima-se que algumas tenham mais de 2000 anos. São também o nome escolhida para um dos meus fios de lã.

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Kauri trees, Agathis australis (Araucariaceae), are New Zealand's largest and most famous native trees on account of its size and age. They can grow to more than 50 metres tall, with trunk girths of up to 16 metres. They can live for many centuries, and some have been estimated to be more 2000 years old.

photo : Kauri 2000 Trust by Dana Ruikje


Other species of Agathis are found in Fiji, New Caledonia, Australia, New Guinea and Philippines.
The arrival of European settlers last century saw the decimation of these magnificent forests. Sailors quickly realised the trunks of young kauri were ideal for ships' masts and spars and settlers who followed discovered the mature trees yielded sawn timber of unsurpassed quality for building.


When the first Europeans came to New Zealand the northern parts of the North Island were covered in vast kauri forests, estimated at around 1,200,000 hectares in total. Today barely 4,000 hectares of original forest remain, the rest felled for timber or cleared for farming.


Waipoua and the neighbouring forests of Mataraua and Waima, make up the largest remaining tract of native forest left from the once extensive Kauri forests of northern New Zealand. The remnants are now under the protection of the Department of Conservation. There is no milling of mature kauri trees nowadays, except under extraordinary circumstances such as for the carving of a Maori canoe.
gigantes :: giants

The largest living kauri tree is known as Tane Mahuta, maori for "Lord of the Forest".


 According to Maori mythology Tane is the son of Ranginui the sky father and Papatuanuku the earth mother. Tane was the child that tore his parent’s parental embrace and once done set about clothing his mother in the forest we have today. All living creatures of the forest are regarded as Tane’s children.


The 1500 year old Tane Mahuta is 51.5 metres tall, with a girth of 13.77 metres. It can be found in the Waipoua Forest, a 9000 hectare forest sanctuary located in New Zealand's North Island. The second and third largest kauri trees, Te Matua Ngahere (father of the Forest) and the McGregor Kauri, can also be found in this forest.


Department of Conservation

Tane Mahuta (photo: New Zealand DoC)

conservação :: conservation


Help recreate the kauri forests of the Coromandel Peninsula with the Kauri 2000 Trust


Kauri 2000 evolved out of a project to mark the start of the new millennium with a goal to plant 2000 kauri. To date the Trust has planted over 23,000 kauri on the Coromandel Peninsula and continues to plant kauri throughout the Coromandel. 2009 marks the Trust's 10th anniversary.

onde? :: where?

* Tane Mahuta - follow the Tane Mahuta Track in New Zealand (North Island)


* kauri forest - Trounson Kauri Walk

A 450-hectare forest reserve restoration project. It seeks to restore the former richness of native biodiversity this forest once boasted allowing people to enjoy a glimpse of what pristine kauri forests where once like.

* Four sisters walk

four kauri trees with evenly spaced slender trunks, arising from a large mound of pukahukatu

 For more information on kauri trees and forest visit the New Zealand's Department of Conservation // Te Papa Atawhai and the Kauri 2000 Trust