Let's make the Garden City of Christchurch a National Park
Friday, 27 August 2021
Covid has reminded us how important it is for people living in cities to be able to access green spaces easily. AMBER ALLOTT reports.
Hayley Guglietta likes to imagine Christchurch with veins of green.
Parks, playgrounds, patches of dense bush, and community food gardens. A vast network running through the city’s suburbs like the Ōtākaro/Avon River, accessible to everyone.
“It’s interesting we call ourselves the Garden City, but we have less canopy cover than Auckland or Wellington,” the community garden organiser says.
“But the thing is, we’ve got the land space to have more.”
Stuff and The Press want Christchurch to become New Zealand’s first National Park City – a greener, healthier, and wilder place to live.
We’re aiming to get it recognised by the National Park City Foundation, but first we have to prove we’re willing to do the work to improve Christchurch’s environment, and have the support of our community.
The United Kingdom-based National Park City Foundation was formed in 2017. Its goal is to help cities around the world become places where people and nature are better connected.
The guiding tenets include having a city that is rich with wildlife, where every child and young person has the chance and space to explore, play and learn outdoors. Everyone in a National Park City can enjoy high-quality green spaces, has clean air to breathe, and can swim in their rivers.
It’s also something every single resident can help achieve, through small, everyday actions.
A case study
London became the world’s first National Park City in 2019 after a widespread campaign led by explorer and geographer Daniel Raven-Ellison.
The United Kingdom’s capital is home to about 9 million people, and while hard to comprehend for many in New Zealand, it is ancient – shaped by human activity going back to the days of the Roman Empire. It’s also home to nearly as many trees, and 15,000 species of wildlife.
The city’s deputy mayor for environment, Shirley Rodrigues, says the work to become a National Park City not only supports Londoners’ health and wellbeing, but is also an essential part of adapting to a changing climate, helping cool the city, and reduce flood risk.
“The [Covid-19] pandemic has highlighted how important it is for Londoners to be able to easily access local green spaces.”
As the world battles climate change and works its way through the pandemic, Rodgrigues supports more cities taking up the call.
“Seeing more cities invest in their green spaces is not only the right thing to do for our environment, it is a hugely important way to support everyone who calls our cities home.”
In the past five years, more than £13 million (NZ$25.6m) has been invested in making London greener, with mayor Sadiq Khan’s Greener City Fund supporting projects in all 32 boroughs and its historic centre, the City of London.
More than 400 hectares of London have now benefited from improved parks and green spaces, the planting of trees and adding greenery to the built environment.
More than 340,000 trees have been planted over that time in gardens, streets and green spaces. Another 65,000 trees will hit the dirt by the end of the year, to complete two new accessible woodlands covering 90ha of the London Green Belt.
But for London’s council, it wasn’t just about planting trees, but also making the city’s infrastructure greener.
A policy in the new London Plan ensures new developments incorporate high-quality green infrastructure, which means green spaces will be a key part of all future buildings.
They provide a range of benefits, including improved health and wellbeing, better resilience to climate change, helping tackle air pollution, and supporting biodiversity.
What steps would Christchurch need to take to get there?
Despite several cities having energetic campaigns under way, like Glasgow and Adelaide, London remains the world’s only National Park City.
For Christchurch to join it, there are 10 steps it has to take, and 23 criteria it must meet.
After doing some research, the campaign will have to be officially registered with the National Park City Foundation. We need at least 200 signatures from Ōtautahi locals to register.Then it’s a matter of looking into what Christchurch’s green potential could be, who could stand to benefit, and how to achieve it.
Diversity has to be a key part of both envisioning Christchurch’s future and writing its story. All of the city’s people need to be represented, especially local iwi and rūnanga, whose whakapapa is intrinsically tied to the land.
The next part involves drafting a proposal and a charter. These will explain why Christchurch deserves to be a National Park City and set out a vision for the city and the goals we need to meet to get there.
Then it comes down to securing community support. This is where you come in. You can sign our draft charter here to show your support.
A decision then needs to be made on how the project will be led. This could involve setting up a committee or network, or another approach. Whatever it ends up being, it needs to have the enthusiasm, capability and resources to deliver on our proposal in the long-term.
Finally, once we’ve gathered our evidence and got the community’s backing, we can submit out application. It will be assessed by the National Park City Foundation, which will make sure it meets the criteria, and will send someone to visit Christchurch themselves.
If the foundation accepts our application, and we agree to its commitments, it’s just a matter of confirming, celebrating, and launching our new National Park City.
Christchurch has several projects already under way that could help our case. On Banks Peninsula there are groups like Pest Free Banks Peninsula hard at work, and natural regeneration projects like Te Ahu Pātiki.
There is also plenty of work going on in the city’s 60ha residential red zone, where hundreds of homes stood before the Canterbury earthquakes. One group is dedicated to making sure it is green and thriving, with its mission being to bring the tūī back to Christchurch, the only New Zealand city without it. Another wants to create a predator-free ecosanctuary there, and yet another is working on building a network of community gardens, orchards, and foraging trails.
Who supports Christchurch becoming a National Park City?
Guglietta and well-known ecologist Colin Meurk were some of the original advocates for Christchurch becoming a National Park City.
“At the moment, the city’s split into two halves – the haves and the have-nots. This is a good chance for some equity, we need something [all of us] can get behind,” Guglietta says.
The city already has a great foundation in place, with places like the red zone, the Avon-Heathcote Estuary, Banks Peninsula, and already-established sites like Travis Wetland and the Styx Mill Conservation Reserve.
But Christchurch is a coastal city threatened by climate change-driven sea level rise, and its communities have been through more than most, she says.
“This city has had some major trauma over the past 10 years, the earthquakes, the shooting, the Port Hills fires, plus Covid.
“More and more people will be looking for a way to bring peace and wellbeing into their lives, and not just in areas where there’s affluence.”
There are big chunks of Linwood, Bromley, and Aranui where there are very few green spaces at all, Guglietta says.
“There’s heaps of research about [how] being amongst the trees and the wildlife can bring a sense of balance and wellbeing, and in this crazy country we’re always on the treadmill.
“We’re seriously in trouble, and we need to find ways to change that.”
Guglietta knows what it’s like to be part of the rat race as much as anyone, having run her own IT company for years.
“Around the time of the earthquakes, a lot of things happened to me.
“I lost both of my grandmothers, who I loved a lot. My mother got Alzheimer's, my business was struggling.
“All of these things changed me, how I looked at the world.”
When she was clearing out one of her grandmother’s belongings, Guglietta came to realise all the stuff was just stuff, and started thinking about what sort of legacy she would like to leave behind someday.
“Chasing money, big house, new cars … it doesn’t mean anything. What really matters is being kind to one another, protecting the environment.
“[That’s why] my profits now go into making a better world.”
Guglietta has been instrumental in creating and managing the Richmond Community Garden, and the Ōtākaro Orchard, a public park full of fruit, vegetables, and berries, free for anyone to harvest.
She has encountered plenty of red tape, but seeing people embrace the spaces she helped create keeps her motivated.
“I love to walk my dog through, and see who’s picking fruit, who’s kayaking in the river, who’s playing in the mud kitchen.
“I just hope we’re helping people improve their mental health. To me that’s success, leaving the world a better place.”
Now Christchurch’s red-zoned land is in the process of being transferred back in the city council’s hands, Guglietta says there is a real chance to get to work revolutionising that space.
“I feel like the community, mana whenua, the council, we all need to work hard to collaborate and get this done.
“[They need to] really embrace and capture that expertise and energy communities bring. We can’t just rely on the council, the more the community’s involved, the better the outcome.
“Now’s the time to galvanise people behind it, and do something that’s an exemplar to the rest of the world.”
Mayor Lianne Dalziel sees becoming a National Park City as a natural extension of Christchurch’s Garden City status.
“People have told us that they are keen on being involved in improving the environment… Not only does this give us the impetus to increase opportunities for people to get involved, the environment itself will benefit from these activities.
“Coming together as communities to make this happen is a challenge that we can take on, and we know that we can succeed.”
One of the benefits will be having more trees that will attract birdlife back into the city, and it could also ensure local government prioritises the environment, Dalziel says.
“Local residents have been putting up their hands for planting days and working bees to clean our rivers and streams for years, so I’m expecting that people will be keen to see what they can do to make this initiative a reality.”
What are some of the criteria a new National Park City has to meet?
Needs to have large-scale and long-term ambitions that can be achieved through many actions.
The initiative needs to be inclusive enough that everyone can contribute, every day.
People from across the city, and from a diverse range of backgrounds, are involved.
The majority of people in the urban area agree with the key aims of the charter – including local government.
Locals need to have the appetite, energy, and willingness to help deliver the charter.
Meaningful policies need to be in place to protect and enhance nature, culture, heritage, the environment and public space.