Protesters vow to occupy Auckland's Ōwairaka/Mt Albert 24/7 to block removal of trees

Monday, 11 November 2019

Anna Radford from Honour the Maunga explains why protestors are blocking the removal of trees from Mt Albert/Ōwairaka. (Video first published November 2019.)

About 200 people turned out on Monday morning to protest the removal of trees from Ōwairaka/Mt Albert.

Protesters started gathering before 6am and have vowed to stay there 24/7 until they get a promise the trees won't be chopped down.

The Tūpuna Maunga Authority (TMA) plans to fell 345 exotic trees as part of its plan to restore native vegetation on the maunga.

But local residents said they were concerned that getting rid of all the trees at once would damage the ecology of the area.

Protesters say they won't move from Ōwairaka/Mt Albert until there's a promise the trees won't be cut down.

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Signs and road cones block the entrance to Ōwairaka/Mt Albert.

They said they only found out about the plans at the beginning of last week, and there had not been adequate consultation.

Anna Radford heads up Honour the Maunga, a community group set up in the last week to fight the removal of the trees.

She said the group acknowledged Tūpuna Maunga Authority's guardianship and supported the planting of natives.

However, they were concerned that mass felling would harm birds and wildlife and mean there was no protection for growing saplings.

'This madness on our maunga has to stop,' she said.

Rachel Langton is a member of the Albert-Eden local board and was at Ōwairaka on Monday with her children.

She said while the long-term restructure of the area was supported as part of the 2016 Tūpuna Maunga Integrated Management Plan, local residents had assumed removing the native trees would be done over a longer period.

The protest attracted about 200 people over the course of Monday morning.

Questions to TMA had gone unanswered, she said, and residents just wanted to understand the reasoning behind the 'drastic approach'.

Paul Majurey, chair of the Tūpuna Maunga Authority, said removing all the trees at once made it easier to minimise the environmental impact and plan for the planting of 13,000 new native trees.

He acknowledged there was a range of views on the restoration programme and said staff were working through a backlog of emails. There had been discussions about holding a public meeting in future, he said.

Langton and a number of other protesters also said they were concerned about the timing of the felling, which falls in nesting season.

Majurey said ecologists had surveyed trees scheduled to be removed, and a small number of exotic trees with nesting native birds had been marked and would not be removed at this time.

Protesters have set up a roster to make sure they're there round the clock.

He said it was important to restore and enhance the original features of the maunga where possible.

'One of the priority goals is restoring and reconnecting native ecological networks within and between the maunga and the wider landscape.

'Proactive management of exotic plant species and reintroducing indigenous flora and fauna is a vital step towards that outcome.'

Public consultation for the Integrated Management Plan Strategies ran from July 6 to August 16.

The plan will see non-native trees removed from 14 Auckland maunga. More than 100 exotic trees were removed from Ōhuiarangi/Pigeon Mountain in April and 150 trees were felled on Māngere Mountain in March, upsetting local residents.

Last year, about 100 pine trees were cut down on Maungarei/Mt Wellington to make way for the planting of 10,000 native trees.