Trees need protection to save species
In many parts of New Zealand there is no automatic protection for giant native trees on private land — they have to be offered up for protection and then be deemed worthy or not.
Now I am not allowed to shoot a tui bird out of a tree, or a heron with chicks, or native geckos, etc, with a shotgun, but I can cut down the very tree they are residing in and obliterate their habitat.
The biota that resides in these ancient trees is open slaughter, for instance, as an example; in a tree many hundreds of years old there are let’s say a population of stick insects or geckos or wood louse or native wild life that does not have a winged stage to their life cycles, therefore they cannot easily relocate to a nearby tree. Over many hundreds of years they are their own genetically distinct micro-population with unique gene lines specific to their habitat, albeit on a single ancient tree.
There is no data collection on how many trees are being cut down, daily, weekly, monthly or annually per decade on private land.
The parliamentary commissioner for the environment in their various State of the Environment reports has missed the boat completely and has not included any report signalling this dire situation or the wildlife affected
. . . none, zip, nil.
Yes there are five methods of protection, eg QEII, private land title covenants, district plan heritage trees, SNAs and district plan area rules, but on private land unless they are offered up for protection and deemed worthy, they remain unprotected and anyone can cut them down. In Northland a developer can present to the district council, an empty section, before they apply for building consent and say there will be no environmental effects because all the trees have already been cut down by right of ownership.
Coastal trees and habitats are being wiped out left, right and centre because of the glaring lack of oversight or awareness of this very situation; I speak for all arborists right through New Zealand and say this is just sheer lunacy.
We are aware of the leviathans of the sea and their place in the food chain but we ignore the top seral stage of ecosystem development and by neglect think “she’ll be right” . . . this is just plain wrong and something needs to be done at the highest levels of governance.
Militant protectionism will turn people into tree haters and turn tree assets into tree liabilities but there must be better levels of awareness in this regard.
Paul Gosling Arborist, Whangarei
Helpers thanked
I would like to thank the kind people who helped when I passed out at the top of Cameron St on Thursday, October 25.
They phoned for an ambulance and stayed with me caring and comforting me until it arrived. There are still some nice people about.
Once again thank you very much, it was appreciated.
Mary Jones Whangarei
Why build cycleways?
Why do the councils and Government build and continue to build cycleways if modern technology vehicles are banned from using them?
For example, e-scooters with speeds of up to 27km/h can use footpaths and the road, both of which are dangerous venues for them, cars and pedestrians, but are ridiculously
banned from using cycleways which are safe venues on the road. Are e-bicycles allowed to use cycleways? Common sense has truly died.
Any two-wheel vehicles driven by those over 18-year-olds must (in the interest of safety) only use the cycleways. Transport NZ needs to move quickly to get this right.
Marie Kaire Ngararatunua