I look westwards towards the setting sun, past a pile of felled giant trees and stumps of where they once lived.
I can hear the hum of rush-hour traffic from the tunnel over-bridge and the motorway beyond the Unitec arboretum.
These trees tell a story of human history of this land from the pristine spring, ‘Te wai unu roa o Wairaka’ by the marae, that flows into Te Auaunga (Oakley Creek) where the first Maori waka landed, to the ‘Carrington Asylum’ built in 1867, until the mental health system was dismantled (including leaving a legacy of homelessness) and it became a technical institution.
Behind me is the dusk chorus of birds in magnificent trees. I’m surrounded by desolate buildings from another era. These historic brick buildings would make fabulous classrooms and student accomodation for a secondary school and a primary school in this expanding city whose heart is being intensified.
Large plots of land like this are rare. With some town planning foresight and architectural skill Unitec land and buildings should be used for the amenities required by an increasing population. The covenant placed on this state owned land stated its use “for education”. That was removed by failed Housing Minister, Phil Twyford, who in a short-term-thinking, small-minded plan, changed its use into housing.
The site is littered with warning signs, not of the real danger, the giving away of valuable land for developers to make a quick buck, and still the birds herald home time.
We need to learn from the tragedy of Western Springs Forest and protect the environment in this climate change emergency, yet without legal tree protection, the public have no voice to stop the chainsaws here.
I leave Unitec via Gate 1, the once tree lined entry like a Van Gogh painting, now a row of severed stumps. Heading home along Pt Chevalier Road moving into the medium strip to give a lone cyclist plenty of road room, I turn right into Meola Road, averting my eyes left, to avoid looking at more stumps where trees once screened the houses.
I pass the native flaxes that will soon be ripped out for the cycleway without thought for hungry tui to Meola Reef where dog walkers chase dusk transforming the sky. The road narrows from soccer players from all over the region, whose cars line both sides as they play under spotlights.
I think, if we really want to enrich our city, more sports fields are another amenity that could be homed on the Unitec land, along with leisure pools like ‘WestWave’ including an Olympic training and hydrotherapy for an ageing population with arthritis and joint replacements, and for the young with sports injuries, instead of high-end apartments.
I worry that we humans, who live a small time on this land, have so little respect for our oxygen producers who live longer than we might ‘own’ a plot of land, yet we cut them down as if we hadn’t damaged the planet enough already, for what... the financial ‘yield’ of developers?
My whangai brother told me mana whenua means umbilical to the cosmos; that Maori believe in connection through trees, land, water, air, everything on Papatuanuku - we are one. Where are mana whenua to protect the Earth from this rape and pillage, including from those who embrace colonialism when it suits their ‘money-whenua’? (GAEL BALDOCK, community advocate)
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