Trees As Old As Our Stories...The Ancient Pūriri of Whāngārā B5

On Whāngārā B5 stands a tree that may have been here as early as Māori arrived from Hawaiki.  

It is a pūriri, broad and grounded, with a trunk so wide that it takes more than one person to reach around it. Ecologists estimate that some of the pūriri on Whāngārā B5 could be anywhere between 250 and 800 years old. Even at the lower end of that range, these trees have stood through generations of change, long before fences, roads, or farm systems shaped this landscape. 

When we speak about He Rau Ake Ake, our 100-Year Whenua Optimisation Plan, this is what we mean by thinking in centuries. These pūriri are not just part of the scenery. They are living ancestors on our whenua. They remind us that land holds memory, that forests have their own whakapapa, and that our role is not to dominate that story, but to become part of it in a way that honours what came before and what is yet to come. 

As part of our recent Rapid Biodiversity Assessment (BioRAP), Tonkin & Taylor ecologists mapped and assessed the remaining native bush across our farms. On Whāngārā B5, they encountered a forest block unlike many others on working land: a place where large pūriri still stand, some with trunks measuring up to three metres across. Based on known growth rates, that size suggests extraordinary age. As Roger MacGibbon, who is overseeing biodiversity across our farms as part of He Rau Ake Ake has noted, these trees may pre-date human settlement in this region. 

What makes pūriri so special is not just their age, but what they carry. 

Pūriri are a keystone species in lowland forests. They fruit throughout the year, making them a reliable food source for birds such as kererū when other trees are not in season. Their trunks are shaped over time by pūririmoths, which burrow into the wood and create cavities. Those hollows become homes for invertebrates and shelter for other species. Their branches host epiphytes such as tank lilies and climbing plants, creating miniature forests within forests. In the canopy of a single pūriri lives an entire community. 

Roger often describes these trees as “hotspots of life”. They are not just big; they are busy. They feed birds, shelter insects, support geckos and skinks, and anchor the structure of the forest around them. Remove a pūriri, and you don’t just lose a tree. You unravel a system. 

What makes this even more powerful is where these trees stand: within a working farm. 

This is not a remote conservation reserve. It is part of our whenua, shaped by generations of farming and land use. Around these ancient trunks are paddocks, fences, and stock routes. That juxtaposition is important. It tells a story about coexistence. It shows that production and protection do not have to sit on opposite sides of a debate. They can, with intention and care, exist together. 

He Rau Ake Ake is built on that premise. It does not ask us to choose between economic resilience and ecological responsibility. It asks us to design for both, over time. 

The BioRAP makes something else very clear. Where forest is protected from grazing and browsing, it flourishes. On Whāngārā B5, a fenced bush remnant shows what happens when stock are excluded: dense understorey, rich plant diversity, strong regeneration across all layers of the forest. It stands in sharp contrast to unfenced areas, where seedlings are browsed down and the next generation of trees struggles to rise. 

This matters when you are thinking in centuries. 

Ancient trees cannot be replaced in a human lifetime. But future ancient trees can be grown. The pūriri that will stand here in 300 years are today’s seedlings. Whether they survive depends on the decisions we make now: where we fence, what we protect, how we manage pests, and whether we give forests the space to breathe and regenerate. 

For our whānau, these pūriri are a source of pride. They tell us that our whenua still holds deep time. They remind us that we are caretakers in a much longer story. For our partners, funders, and government agencies, they offer something equally important: proof that intergenerational thinking is not a metaphor here. It is visible in bark and branch, in diameter and canopy, in living form. 

As Roger has written, mature pūriri “play important roles in supporting and maintaining biodiversity.” They are not decorative. They are functional. They are infrastructure in the truest sense: living systems that support other life. 

This is why He Rau Ake Ake speaks of optimisation rather than extraction. Our plan is not about pushing land harder in the short term. It is about strengthening the systems that allow whenua to remain productive and alive across generations. Protecting ancient trees, restoring the forests around them, and allowing new cohorts to grow is part of that work. 

When you stand beside a pūriri that may have taken root before the first waka arrived, it becomes easier to think beyond the next season. You begin to understand that every fence line, every planting, every restoration decision is part of a much longer arc. 

These trees have already survived centuries. Our responsibility is simple, and profound: to ensure they are not the last of their kind on our land. 

If we do our job well, the pūriri of Whāngārā will still be standing when our great-grandchildren are old. And somewhere nearby, a new generation of trees will be quietly beginning their own long story.