Tonight, Whakatāne is being treated to a talk by a conservation advocate who has been described as the living Lorax or New Zealand’s dreadlocked answer to David Attenborough – with attitude.

Dean Baigent-Mercer will be speaking about the big picture of the native forest lifecycle and recovery, at Whakatāne Little Theatre at 7.30pm.

The event is being hosted by Eastern Bay of Plenty Forest and Bird. Entry is by koha.

Mr Baigent-Mercer has been working on native forest issues both nationally and internationally for the past 30 years.

He has been involved in occupations to prevent the logging of native forests, used drones to film the collapse of forests in the Far North, and spread his knowledge to inform conversations about what was happening in the Raukūmara and other Bay of Plenty forests.

Nationally, Mr Baigent-Mercer works on native forest and carbon issues, including the impacts of pests.

He said forests are being consumed into the mouths of pests, making them quiet and stripping away their diversity.

While it wasn’t possible to do everything, and some species were lost forever, Mr Baigent-Mercer said there was still huge potential for improvements to be made to native forests.

“We can still bring back resilience to native forests and end up with massive flocks of kererū again.”

Mr Baigent-Mercer said his talk tonight would be big picture, starting before people arrived, the loss of early lifecycles, impacts of certain species, through to examples of what happens when you take the pressure off, and what success looks like with pest control.

It's aided by a collection of stunning images taken by Mr Baigent-Mercer himself across the decades, and the talk is promised to be easy to understand for all audiences.