the current growth is younger native forest (around 150,000 kauri seedlings were planted by the New Zealand Forest Service in the 1970s and 1980s) as well as some remaining kauri in the far north of the island. Today much of the island is covered with regenerating bush dominated bykanuka and kauri.
Other industries
The island was also the site of New Zealand's last whaling station, at Whangaparapara, which was opened only in 1956 (over a century after the whaling industry peaked in New Zealand), and was to be closed again (due to depletion of whaling stocks and increasing protection of whale species) by 1962. Some remains can still be visited in the bay.
Another small-scale industry on the island was kauri gum digging, while dairy farming and sheep farming have tended to play a small role compared to the usual New Zealand practice. A local fishing industry also existed, but collapsed when international fish prices dropped. In modern days, Great Barrier Islanders are generally occupied in tourism, farming or service-related industries, when not working off-island in other jobs.
Shipwrecks
The remote north of the island was the site of the sinking of the SS Wairarapa around midnight of 29 October 1894. This tragedy was one of New Zealand's worst shipwrecks, with about 140 lives lost, some of them buried in two beach grave sites in the far north of the island. As a result a Great Barrier Island pigeon post service was set up, the first message being flown on 14 May 1897. Special postage stamps were issued from October 1898 until 1908, when a new communications cable was laid to the mainland, which made the pigeon post redundant. Another major wreck lies on the opposite end of the island in the far southeast, the SS Wiltshire.
Nature reserves
Over time, more and more parts of the island came under the stewardship of the Department of Conservation (DOC) or its predecessors. Partly this was land that
