Killing the Western Springs Forest - The Waitemata Local Board decides 4-3 to demolish all 200 pines.
This decision makes me angry on so many fronts, but I don’t think it’s the end of the road yet. Five years ago when discussions first began, we were told many of the trees were old and dangerous, and that they all needed felling.
We now know that was just not true. There are just 22 trees rated as vulnerable to falling over in a storm, and only two have fallen in the last two years The council closed the forest paths to walkers, and sought ‘expert’ advice, with an apparently predetermined plan to fell the entire forest.
The local board was charged with applying for a resource consent to get permission to chop down every tree. The council plan was to grow the maturing understorey of mainly natives, and plant further natives to grow a native forest.
But the way the plan was to proceed would smash 80% of the developing understorey and leave 30-40 metre trunks lying around preventing much new planting. The road to be built into the forest was deemed insufficient for the task and more cut and fill would be needed, something Geotech experts would need to re-assess.
Those unresolved difficulties meant the end of my support. I agreed that, if many of the trees were dangerous and had reached the end of their natural life, maybe they should come down. After volunteering on Tiritiri Matangi Island’s restoration, where 300,000 natives were planted, I just adored the returning dawn chorus.
The sound of kokako in a dawn chorus is bone shiveringly beautiful. Could that happen in an inner city sanctuary? I thought so, and still hope it could one day. In the last five years the whole world has changed, and it’s not just Covid.
Many people were angry when the previous National Government cut protection of groups of trees out of the Resource Management Act (the RMA). Council cried they could not stop developers on private land from cutting down trees to enable a few more million dollar apartments.
Exotics, natives - they didn’t care - including recently in Canal Road, Avondale. Many local boards are now coping with loss of tree cover in their wards. It’s not just Waitemata-.
And Aucklanders are angry. Trees are a vital amenity for their shade, their carbon sequestering, their bird, and a myriad of other animals habitat.
And now council plans to spend about two million hard earned dollars (the council we are told is 1.4 billion dollars in the red) to cut down THEIR OWN trees; vandalism, and poor spending!
Surely money needs prioritising now more than ever I, and many others, are desperate to save the Leys Institute Library from demolition or sale to a developer.
Why couldn’t those millions of dollars go towards saving Leys? My understanding is that a proposed plan B for a staged felling of the forest never got discussed because no genuine attempt was made by council officers to have a proper consultation with interested locals.
A proposal which would selectively manage the forest, felling dangerous trees when necessary, and managing the rest; chop a few widow makers off to save them falling on someone’s head.
I also understand that Ngati Whatua’s opinion in favour of felling was not set in concrete, and that they were open to looking at other options, particularly the option that never came to pass.
So here we are almost at the end of 2020. The city is broke, everyone is sick of Auckland losing vital tree coverage, and a stubborn, powerful and bullying bureaucracy, has continued to push the Waitemata- Local Board to use the resource consent and do a chainsaw massacre on the forest, wasting a couple of million dollars of Auckland’s hard earned ratepayer money.
I would urge the four board members who voted to fell the forest, (Chairman Richard Northey, Deputy Chair Kerrin Leoni, Graeme Gunthorp and Julie Sandilands) to pause a minute and just think again, given the changed circumstances in five years. There is very little risk to the public. Put up some appropriate interpretation signs, chop off one widow maker near the track, watch a few other aging pines and save the city maybe several million dollars. Very few of these old trees are particularly senescent and in danger of suddenly falling over.
Just remember, board members, you are there to act for the community that voted you in, not an army of faceless bureaucrats with an agenda which the public does not support. I guarantee that any one of the four named above who decides on balance they should change their mind and call another vote, will be very warmly thanked for their courage by the Waitemata- community and, probably, every Auckland Local Board. It could well assure them of re-election. (JOHN ELLIOTT)