The Good Life

Opposition to the felling of exotic trees on a maunga is understandable in the circumstances.

Look at that view. It used to be my favourite in all the world. On the horizon is a slumbering Rangitoto, its grey smudge more like an absence in the blue sky.

A little closer, like a mum being mobbed by her kids, is the

Sky Tower hemmed by central Auckland’s modest huddle of skyscrapers. And in the middle distance, encircled by suburbia, is a small surprise: green fields. Those are the paddocks of the local high school’s teaching farm.

I took this photo on an alreadyhot summer’s morning in January five years ago on one of my walks to the summit of our local maunga. It’s becoming harder to remember a time before Lush Places, but back then, we lived in Mt Albert, a part of Auckland the media usually labels “leafy”, somehow making a positive sound pejorative.

Not long after this photo was taken, ownership of Mt Albert’s maunga, Ōwairaka, was vested, along with 13 other volcanic cones, in local iwi by an act of Parliament, though, of course, other Aucklanders continue to feel ownership, too. You certainly do if you’re lucky enough to live near one. Each maunga is not only a commanding presence, and a promontory to gain a sweeping view on a hot summer’s day, but also central to the life of the community.

Ōwairaka is a meeting place. It is where locals nod hello on a morning constitutional or stop for a chat while walking the dog. There is a soccer field, an archery range and an off-lead area for dogs. There are red-faced joggers and sightseers in cars. There is grass to lie in and trees to lie under. It is cherished by those who use it every day and they recognise it as something to be protected.

So I was entirely unsurprised to read Mt Albert locals have been physically standing in the way of a decision to fell hundreds of Ōwairaka’s trees; I suspect, too, one of those trees is in my photo. And I know why: as a big, old gum it commits the crime of being “inappropriate”.

In short, what has happened is this: a management plan drawn up by the Tūpuna Maunga Authority — a statutory body charged with caring for Auckland’s maunga — has set the “direction for protection, restoration, enhancement and appropriate use” of the cones. Native trees and shrubs are being planted in thousands on maunga to “restore” what the authority calls “indigenous ecosystems” and so “attract indigenous species”. Good.

Unfortunately, the authority’s “restoration” plan also demands “inappropriate exotic vegetation” be destroyed, including 345 trees on Ōwairaka.

It isn’t quite Year Zero. Some mature, non-native trees will be left alone, at least for now. But as protesting locals have said, the new natives are potentially decades away from providing the already plentiful bird life on Ōwairaka (including tūī, pīwakawaka, kingfisher and kererū) with homes, so what happens when up to 345 places they used for nesting and food gathering disappear overnight?

But there is a deeper issue. What is it that makes a tree “appropriate”, and another “inappropriate” and deserving of the chop? And, who decides? Obviously, the law says the authority decides, not locals standing in front of the chainsaws, though the authority says public consultation took place. It speaks volumes about its lack of engagement with Mt Albert’s community that hundreds who so strongly object to the trees being felled hadn’t been aware of the issue until it was too late.

The answer to the first question is clear, too. The felling of 345 exotic trees — not a single native appears threatened — tells us exactly what the authority considers “appropriate”. And by extension, it is saying the “health” of Ōwairaka’s ecosystem will only be “appropriate” when it equals that of some idealised point in the distant past, certainly prior to colonial bush-clearing and quarrying and, presumably, before many of Auckland’s maunga were largely denuded of vegetation to make way for pā.

The ideological diktat is plain: only “indigenous” is truly “appropriate”. But I can’t help thinking that if a tūī doesn’t care if it feeds in a flowering gum tree while the natives grow tall, then why should we?

What is it that makes one tree “appropriate” and another deserving of the chop?