Tane Mahuta - this giant Kauri tree is the largest known living Kauri in New Zealand and is more than 1250 years old. Tane Mahute is Maori and means 'Ruler of the Forest'. (Agathis australis). Waipoua Forest Sanctuary, Northland, North Island, New Zealand. The felling of nearly all of New Zealand's Kauri forests is a very sad story. The oldest of the few giant Kauris that are left are over 1200 years old and deliver an unbelievable volume of valuable wood. That is the reason why nearly all of them were felled starting from around 150 years ago when the Europeans entered the land. In just over 100 years logging gum-digging and burning transformed the northern landscape from forest to farmland. A final push to extract the last Kauri swept through the north of New Zealand in the 1920s-30s reducing the beleaguered forest to the few patches surviving today. Despite being reduced to less than 5 % of their former extent new generations of kauri forests are once more thrusting up through the scrub wherever areas of marginal farmland are abandoned. The very slow growing but very resistent Kauri is the ultimate survivor.