A third of Auckland’s trees felled, Dr says

One third of Auckland’s residential trees have been felled in the past five years, the Tree Council says.

The Tree Council was a longstanding non-profit organisation established in 1986 to act as a steward for the trees of the Auckland region.

Its secretary, Dr Mels Barton, said changes to the Resource Management Act saw blanket protections on trees lifted in 2012, leaving 90 per cent of trees in residential areas unprotected. And for the 10 per cent protected, the protections were woefully inadequate, Barton told councillors at the October meeting of Auckland Council’s Planning Committee.

Of the purported 6000 trees protected by the Unitary Plan’s Schedule 10 list of notable trees, the tree council estimated only 3000 were left. To make matters worse the schedule, Unitary Plan, and its maps were all inaccurate, she said.

‘‘So in the three places that you hold legally binding information about legally protecting trees - it’s all wrong.’’

Following the mistaken removal of protected pecan trees in Avondale, the Tree Council audited trees in the suburb and found the schedule was twothirds wrong.

‘‘That is horrifying. You don’t even know where these trees are. How can you protect them?’’

Barton said that was only the tip of the iceberg.

She provided the committee figures showing trees protected by resource consents had no chance. Over the past two years 99.9 per cent of applications to remove trees had been nonnotified, and these types of consents received a default ‘Yes’, she said.

If something wasn’t done, there would be few trees left in 10 years, Barton said.

Committee chairman Councillor Chris Darby said he and other councillors shared Barton’s concern.

He said the committee had called for a report on the ‘‘errors and anomalies’’ in the Unitary Plan, but a more in-depth report would be needed.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said the council needed to try and get sensible provisions back into the Resource Management Act. He said the good news was 1400 native plants a day were being planted under the Million Trees programme.

The committee called for joint staff to report back to the council’ by February 2018 on options used and available to protect trees.

JAY BOREHAM/STUFF A third of Auckland’s trees have been chopped down over the last five years, Dr Mels Barton says.