Pōhutukawa back under official protection after being accidentally dropped off list

Friday, 29 April 2022

A 100-year-old pōhutukawa tree could be chopped down in Mount Eden as the council accidentally removed its protection. Arborist Mark Lockhart is leading protests.

A large pōhutukawa in Auckland’s Mt Eden will be officially protected again after being accidentally removed from the Council protected trees list.

The tree on Eglinton Avenue is on private property, and the landowner wanted to remove the tree for development until the Tree Council, a group of volunteer conservationists, stopped him through the courts.

This month, Auckland Council’s Independent Hearing Commissioners granted a plan change to re-add the pōhutukawa to the list of Notable Trees under council protection.

This large Pohutakawa in Mt Eden is now under official council protection after being accidentally removed from the protected trees list.

It comes after the Council recieved 160 submissions about the tree’s potential removal, 159 of which supported putting the tree back under Council protection.

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The community is up in arms after a political decision was made to mow about 8000 trees at a Paremoremo reserve.

Tree Council chair Sean Freeman said the tree protection was a “great outcome” for Aucklanders today and in the future.

Trees on the Notable Tree Schedule (also known as Schedule 10) cannot be cut down or removed without Auckland Council approved resource consent, even if they are on private property.

“The fact that such a basic error went unnoticed for so long is a clear indication of the lack of adequate management of the Notable Tree Schedule by Auckland Council since its inception,” Freeman said.

The tree, which is growing on a volcanic rock outcrop, is at least 100 years old, and reaches around 20m in height and has 22m of canopy.

Auckland Council chief of strategy Megan Tyler said the council was committed to improving the Notable Tree Schedule.

“Due to the complexity of the plan change process, we do not believe it is efficient or best practice to do so for individual trees, instead our intention is to use our resources to progress changes that will address multiple trees at once,” she said in a statement.

The Council first learned about the mistake with the pōhutukawa in April 2021 when resident Mark Lockhart emailed his local councillors, and in June that year, councillors voted to add it back to the tree schedule.

Speaking to Stuff, Tree Council secretary Dr Mels Barton said the Tree Council had spent around $6000 on legal fees fighting to protect this single pōhutukawa from being cut down.

Without donors and volunteers, and not being protected by the council’s notable tree list, the pōhutukawa may not have stood a chance, she said.

In 2021, the Tree Council filed a judicial review against Auckland Council, arguing that the lack of work on notable trees constituted a legal breach of its responsibilities to maintain the tree schedule.

That came around a year after a council planning committee had committed to resuming work on notable trees “when resources allow,” which finally happened in February 2022.