Three thousand years ago, forest covered virtually the entire land surface area of New Zealand below the alpine treeline, but the arrival of the early Maori people about 1000 BP initiated widespread forest destruction. The Maori burned significant areas of lowland forest to encourage the growth of bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum) that was used as a food source, to make cross-country travel easier and also as a strategy for hunting moa.
Maori were, however, not the sole cause of deforestation during this time, as climatic change, volcanism and naturally ignited fires have all been implicated as factors driving Holocene vegetation change in New Zealand. As a result of these combined factors, forest cover had been reduced to an estimated 68% of the land surface by the time European settlers arrived in the early 1800s, and about half of the lowland forests had been destroyed.
The first European settlers in the early 19th Century initially cleared forest at a relatively slow rate. However, with a growing population, improvements to roads and a new rail system, large-scale clearance of forest on the plains began in earnest in the 1870s. Early New Zealand landholders were required by law to improve their land, and many achieved this via the simple act of burning the forest. Primary forest clearance continued into the mid-20th century, and after the Second World War increasing amounts of forest in the mountain ranges were converted to farmland or fast-growing exotic plantations. The net result of Maori and European exploitation of New Zealandâs indigenous forest was the destruction of approximately three-quarters of the forest, reducing it from 82% to 23% of the land surface area
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