Trees
Jonathan Kennett
(Since graduating with a degree in botanical ecology in 1989, Jonathan Kennett has been involved in several projects relating to the history, protection and restoration of trees. He has completed oral history projects on Tongariro Forest, Otari-Wilton's Bush and Wellington Botanical Gardens, as well as managing forest restoration projects and a carbon forest sink in Golden Bay.)
- Trees and all plants perform a function vital to life on earth – photosynthesis – combining water and carbon dioxide and giving off oxygen, an essential chemical for our life on earth. Trees also convert the sun’s energy into carbohydrates, such as sugars, which are the start of almost all food chains.
- Trees regulate the earth’s climate by taking carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) out of the atmosphere. This carbon is both stored in trees and eaten by animals. Fossil fuels such as the oil and coal we use today, were formed over millions of years from decomposing plants and animals.
- NZs most famous tree, Tane Mahuta, is estimated to have stored 300 tonnes of carbon over its 2000 year life.
- The oldest living organisms in New Zealand, and on the planet, are trees. Several New Zealand trees can grow older than 1000 years, including Kauri, Miro, Rata, and Rimu. In Northland one massive Kauri tree was dated at 4000 years old.
- Trees have an incredible ability to compartmentalise themselves, effectively allowing ‘self-amputations’ to occur in order to stop disease spreading. This is one of the main reasons they live so long, even after they have finished growing in size.
- Over the last 200 years, as the human population has exploded from 1 billion to over 7 billion, most of the world’s forests have been exploited as material valued for strength and burnability. Natural forests, full of diversity, have been replaced with monocultures of plants and animals solely for our use.
- 80% of world-wide deforestation is for agriculture. Less than half of the world’s rainforest remain standing, and only 30% of the planet is left covered with forests of various types.
Jonathan Kennett
(Since graduating with a degree in botanical ecology in 1989, Jonathan Kennett has been involved in several projects relating to the history, protection and restoration of trees. He has completed oral history projects on Tongariro Forest, Otari-Wilton's Bush and Wellington Botanical Gardens, as well as managing forest restoration projects and a carbon forest sink in Golden Bay.)