3 Nov 2021

Our Changing World - Looking for tōtara

From Afternoons, 3:35 pm on 3 November 2021

Central Otago is known for its grassy, tussocked hills, but much of it was once covered in tōtara forest.

A tōtara tree on the ridgeline of the Waikerikeri valley.

A tōtara tree on the ridgeline of the Waikerikeri valley. Photo: RNZ / Claire Concannon

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Claire Concannon visits the Waikerikeri valley with a researcher who is mapping the remaining trees and figuring out what conditions might help them return. Ben Teele, a PhD student at the Department of Botany at the University of Otago, has been walking the Cental Otago hillsides to find the remnant populations of tōtara trees that survived the fires post human arrival. His research, funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries One Billion Trees programme, is aimed at figuring out the optimum conditions for these native trees to spread out once again.

Ben Teele takes some clippings from a remnant Central Otago tōtara tree

Ben Teele takes some clippings from a remnant Central Otago tōtara tree Photo: RNZ/Claire Concannon