Opinion: Trees gone but they will return

The "newly-denuded" Papamoa Hills Regional Park .Photo/ George Novak

Bald can be beautiful. Think David Beckham with buzz cut; chrome-dome Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson; fuzzy-headed Natalie Portman or bad-ass Sigourney Weaver.

Lovers of smooth simplicity may adore the look and feel of stubbles or shiny head, but I prefer hair. Let me feast my fingers on a thick, healthy mane. I'll enjoy my husband's, and for that matter, my own locks, as long as we're lucky enough to keep them. If baldness strikes, we can turn off the lights until we adapt to the new look.

Which is what happened to me last weekend, not in the house, but outside. My first glimpse of the newly-denuded Papamoa Hills Regional Park from the main entrance started at 6.30am on Saturday. I could barely see, even with my head torch, as I and five other early birds ran and walked the steep trail to the summit. It would be another half hour before light appeared, and by then, we had crested the hill into the forest of Summerhill farm trails.

I turned back after 45 minutes to run to the car park, clambering up cow-pied paddocks before descending the main summit path. At last, we could spy the once-familiar forest. "It's pretty bald," I tell my running mate. "At least I can see my car. And look, they left some natives." Three fern trees towered over swaths of felled tinder and severed roots. Another small grove of trees stood further down the track. Among stumps and wood shrapnel, sprigs of green speckled the hillside. It looked like a regenerating blast site. Drop a load of volcanic rock and call it Tongariro North.

When a private company owns land the public embraces, this is a not-unexpected result. Still, it looks sad, especially if you've grown used to walking under the tree canopy, basking in its shade, absorbing its birdsong. You're amazed something so wild-looking exists so close to home. You remember how you went with your then 7-year-old son on a school trip up the twisty, shaded path, emerging onto fields of green with views of the ocean and the Mount. You recall taking photos of your child against a backdrop of hills and trees.

We knew the trees were going; we knew why; we knew there was nothing to be done. The Regional Council plans to replant the harvested area with 30,000 native plants this winter and another 20,000 over five years. I had hoped more of that marvellous forest cathedral might be saved. Today, trees ring the car park, living headstones for what used to be. Growing another forest will take years. Meanwhile, I wonder where the birds re-settled?

Twenty-five hectares were set for harvest. Farm Forestry New Zealand reports 30-year-old trees fetch an average net revenue per hectare (depending on terrain and stems per hectare) at nearly $26,000. That equates to a $650,000 forest (though I was unable to confirm with the forest's owner whether this figure was in the ballpark). Too late for the givealittle campaign, not that it would've worked, anyway. When you're a 30-year-old privately-owned pine, there's a good chance your time is short.

It's testament to my friends' concrete upper lips that their responses are so mild, so measured. Part of the reluctance to say anything negative about the newly-naked land is we're grateful to return to the park at all. Papamoa Hills closed early last October and was expected to open after four months. But heavy rain and storms meant the reopening happened after eight months - the third of June.

At least we have adjacent Summerhill, 126ha owned by a private charitable trust. But it, too, is closing - from June 12 until 26 for fence, track and tree maintenance. I'm told the work involves just a trim and not a set of industrial choppers set to zero.

One lesson, after seeing Pap Hills bald and barren is to appreciate what we have while it's here. Enjoy as many wild spaces as possible before Mother Nature or Corporate Enterprise change their character. Treat them kindly, taking only photographs, leaving only footprints.

Enjoy the hair (if you have it). Go easy on the chemicals.
Another lesson: our ability to see the bright side. Kiwis and forests are resilient, though the former may bounce back more quickly after trauma than the latter.

And if someday I lose every single strand on my head due to treatment for cancer or other affliction, I'll know who to call for moral support. "You look great," my friends will say. "Your baldness shows off your lovely skull."