Kaingaroa Forest

The Kaingaroa Forest is the largest forest in the North Island of New Zealand and the largest forest plantation in the southern hemisphere. The forest covers 2900 km ² in the area of ​​East Cape and Bay of Plenty. It extends east of Lake Taupo from northeast to southwest. The forest management of the site is located in the settlement of Kaingaroa, 50km southeast of Rotorua.

The first plantings were made in the late 1920s as a state forest, this time under the name of Kaingaroa State Forest.

In the 1980s, the government sought to the forest to private owners to sell. Several Māori iwi went against it in court. They argued that they were expropriated as traditional owners of the land illegally and that the government should keep the land had to the claims of Māori fully understood .. This took 20 years to complete, on 1 July 2009, the country became the traditional owners as part of the compensatory measures of the government for a fraction of the Treaty of Waitangi by the Crown returned. The wood is owned by the private Kaingaroa Timberlands Ltd.. , Which holds a license to forestry management in the country.

State Highway 38 from Wai -O -Tapu by Murupara and continues through Te Urewera according to Wairoa via the woods.