Berwick Forest is a large ''

Pinus radiata ''Pinus radiata'' ( syn. ''Pinus insignis''), the Monterey pine, insignis pine or radiata pine, is a species of pine native to the Central Coast of California and Mexico (Guadalupe Island and Cedros island). It is an evergreen conifer in the fa ...

'' (

Pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

)

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

at Berwick in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, around 40 km west of

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

. The forest lies close to the banks of the

Waipori River The Waipori River is in Otago in the South Island of New Zealand. Rising in the Lammerlaw Range, it flows southeast for before joining the Taieri River near Henley, southwest of Dunedin of which it is officially the southernmost border. Googl ...

immediately below and around the western end of

Lake Mahinerangi Lake Mahinerangi is a lake formed when a dam was built on the Waipori River for hydroelectric generation. The lake is to the west of Dunedin in New Zealand's South Island. Construction of the dam started in 1903 and since 1907, power has been p ...

, and consists of three blocks - the main block, Maungatua, and Waitahuna, with a total area of 13,141 hectares. The land is owned by Otago Land Company, a sub company of Boston-based investment company

GMO LLC GMO LLC (also known as GMO and Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. LLC) is an American investment management firm headquartered in Boston. The firm takes a contrarian investing and generally bearish approach to the markets and holds the views th ...

, the trees by Wenita Forest Products, which has shareholders

Sinotrans Sinotrans Limited (commonly referred to as Sinotrans) is one of the largest logistics companies in China. The business areas of the company include storage and terminal services and trucking and marine transportation. Operations Sinotrans operat ...

(62%), the Chinese shipping company, and GMO. The forest is popular with hunters from

Otago Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...

, with both deer and wild pigs that have escaped from farms as common prey. The forest surrounds the Otago Youth Adventure Trust's Berwick Lodge. The forest was subject to a large

forest fire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire ...

in the late 1990s that destroyed several square kilometres of trees, and caused NZ$12 million (US$7 million) worth of damage. The cause of the fire was thought to have been sunlight shining through discarded glass.

External links

Berwick Forest webpage
at Wenita Geography of Otago Forests of New Zealand {{Otago-geo-stub