The community group who has maintained a daily tree protection vigil for more than 820 days at Ōwairaka / Mt Albert says it will be standing down on Saturday 12 March following the unanimous Court of Appeal judgment that means the trees are safe for now.

The judicial decision found Tūpuna Maunga Authority had acted unlawfully by failing to consult with the public over its decision to fell Ōwairaka’s exotic trees. The decision also concluded Auckland Council acted unlawfully by not publicly notifying the tree felling resource consent.

However, the decision also leaves the door open for the Authority to fell the trees in future, provided the consultation obligations are met. Furthermore, the Authority has also publicly signalled its intention to challenge the decision and/or effect a law change to undermine it. This means the trees’ long-term safety is not guaranteed.

Honour the Maunga’s leader Anna Radford says there is no longer a need for the group to remain at the maunga because the trees are safe for the foreseeable future. It will stay on a few more days, however, to let the many supportive maunga users from across the city know about the development.

Although Honour the Maunga may be ending its physical presence it will continue advocating for the maunga trees and is poised to act quickly should there be any move to fell them.

Furthermore, the group will be campaigning to raise awareness in this year’s local body elections regarding which Auckland Mayoral, Councilor and Local Board candidates do and do not support saving the maunga trees.

“We are and have always been an environmentally-focused organisation but along the way have become aware of how the people of Aucklands’ voices are being not only ignored but actively silenced by many elected representatives – especially those on the Authority - and unelected parties.

“This is a big problem that goes way beyond the maunga tree issue,” she says.

“The Authority and Auckland Council have demonstrated destructive, divisive co-governance and we believe valuable lessons can be learned so that this kind of toxic situation can be prevented in any future co-governance arrangements.”

Ms Radford says the Authority has acted in very poor faith in many ways, including misleading the public about its true intentions for the maunga, and deliberately weaponising and inflaming racial tensions to distract attention from its own behaviours.

“We are therefore highly sceptical that any future consultation about the trees will be in good faith or representative of true democracy by either the Authority or the Council.

“The upcoming local body elections present an important opportunity to let the people of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland who care about the maunga trees’ future to take action at the ballot box so that hopefully the next Mayor and elected representatives will treat the Auckland community and its natural environment with more integrity.”

Honour the Maunga initially occupied Ōwairaka in November 2019 to prevent the co-governance Tūpuna Maunga Authority from felling all 345 exotic trees on the maunga – nearly half its entire tree cover. In all, the ratepayer funded body plans to rid the city’s maunga of around 2500 non-native trees, despite Auckland Council and central government having declared a climate emergency.

NOTES FOR MEDIA

There has been considerable misreporting on the maunga tree issue so, if reporting this story then please be aware:

Many news media have incorrectly positioned this issue as a Māori vs Pākeha one; it is not. For example, Shirley Waru (Te Rarawa o Ngāphui / Te Uri o Tai) has formed the Respect Mt Richmond / Otāhūhu tree protection group, which will occupy that maunga should the Authority move to fell its 443 non-native trees.

Honour the Maunga may have a Pākeha spokesperson, but it is not a Pākeha group. It has Māori and Pākeha patrons and its members are drawn from all races and walks of life.

Honour the Maunga is an environmental group. Despite what has been reported, we have no position on the Treaty and no alignment or relationship with anti-Treaty groups.

Honour the Maunga supports succession to fully native maunga vegetation over time, but we do not support the environmentally destructive processes that the Authority proposes. Best practice succession takes place over many decades, not months.

The Authority has variously stated plans for between 9,000 and 13,000 plantings at Ōwairaka but very few of those plantings are actually tree species. The Authority’s planting plans and plantings to date show mostly low-growing grasses, flaxes and shrubs are to go in areas that are mostly free of exotic trees.

Tūpuna Maunga Authority has given the misleading impression that it intends to cloak Auckland’s maunga in trees. Its planting plans and other information obtained through the LGOIMA official information process show that, should the exotics go, then the end result will be largely bare, barren looking maunga with a few patches of mostly low-growing plants.

Retaining the exotic trees will not affect the intended native vegetation plantings because those plantings are not planned for where most of the exotics are. Therefore, leaving the exotics in place will not affect the native planting programme and will provide many environmental benefits while the new plantings grow to maturity.

Honour the Maunga did not initiate the judicial action, which was undertaken by two members of the public Warwick and Averil Norman, who are not members of the group. The judicial action was against felling Ōwairaka’s exotic trees. It was not against the native planting programme.

© Scoop Media