Rākau: The Ancient Forests of New Zealand

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Ned Barraud on creating his new book on the New Zealand forest.

When you step into a New Zealand forest, the world changes. The light shifts, the air is damp with earth, and the trunks of rimu, tōtara and miro rise like pillars. You feel small, but also connected to something that has been here far longer than you. That sense of awe has been with me since childhood, and it’s what I wanted to capture in Rākau.

This book had been in the background for a while, until the right moment came to propose it to Michael Upchurch at Te Papa Press. To my relief, he took to it straight away. Te Papa Press were the right publisher for the project, and I don’t think anyone else would have treated it with the same care. Having Leon Perrie, Curator Botany at Te Papa, contribute his botanical knowledge, and input early on from Isaac Te Awa, the mātauranga Māori consultant, gave the book the depth it needed.

When the finished copy arrived in the post, I was struck by how beautiful it looked: the matte paper, the glossy title, the two gatefolds opening to reveal a kauri and a southern rātā. Holding it for the first time was a thrill. With many books, I wish I could change a few details once they are printed. Not this one. It felt complete.

That sense of awe has been with me since childhood, and it’s what I wanted to capture in Rākau

Several journeys shaped the work. Riding the Timber Trail through Pureora Forest last year was one of them. Pureora is one of the last great stands of lowland podocarp in the North Island, saved from clear felling in the late 1970s after protesters staged tree top sit-ins. What makes it remarkable is that it was flat, accessible land, and yet it survives. Cycling through those towering rimu and tōtara, knowing they had been spared, was a powerful experience.

Tramping the Heaphy Track was another inspiration. Encountering southern rātā for the first time, giants rising above the canopy with trunks wrapped in vines and epiphytes, felt like standing before something ancient. Walking the length of Abel Tasman National Park also left its mark. The beech forest spilling down to golden beaches was a return to a place I grew up visiting on family holidays. Revisiting it with a sketchbook gave the paintings a personal connection.

Moving back to Nelson has been equally important. The Brook Waimārama Sanctuary, with its mature tōtara, miro, and rimu, is an incredible resource to have close by. These places—the Heaphy, Abel Tasman, Pureora, the Brook—each shaped the atmosphere of the book. I often worked from photos, but it was the memory of standing under those trees that I tried to bring through in the illustrations.

The book is dedicated to my grandmother, Molly. When I was twelve, she gave me a book on native trees with watercolour illustrations. It has since been lost, but it was formative for me. Her garden, and the giant rātā she had protected as a heritage tree, were just as influential. Every time I see that tree, I’m reminded of her and those childhood hours in the garden. It feels right that Rākau carries her name.

Books take time, and Rākau is in many ways a book about time. Trees endure for centuries. They hold history in their rings, provide shelter for countless lives, and withstand storms and droughts. It seems fitting that this book too took years to find its form.

Illustrating trees is demanding. Their detail is endless, and their scale hard to capture. For Rākau, I aimed to balance accuracy with atmosphere: the awe of a kauri, or the quiet of a beech forest. The fold-out spreads were especially challenging. How do you fit a tree of that size on a page? The solution was to let the illustrations expand across the gatefolds, giving readers a small sense of the same reveal I felt in the forest.

We are at a point where our relationship with nature feels fragile. Climate change, habitat loss and deforestation are daily concerns. But trees are not only resources. They are living beings, guardians of the land, and part of our collective history.

That is why the book needed multiple perspectives. Leon Perrie’s science, paired with my illustrations, creates a balance between knowledge and feeling. Together they invite readers not only to learn about trees but to experience them on the page.

Rākau ends with the traditional story of Rata and the tōtara. In the story, Rata fells a great tree without asking permission, only to find it mysteriously restored each night by the forest beings. Eventually he learns that nature must be approached with respect. For me, this story carries the heart of the book. If Rākau encourages readers to look more closely at the trees around them, to treat them not as background but as living beings to value and protect, then it has done its job.

For me, it has been a return: to Abel Tasman, the Heaphy, Pureora, the Brook Sanctuary, and to the garden of my grandmother. Ideas are like seeds, they take root and grow in unexpected ways. Rākau has been one of those seeds, and I am glad I nurtured it.

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