Editorial: Action, not words needed atop Mt Eden

The biggest threat to the state of Mt Eden has always been local body inertia rather than tourists or cows.

So Auckland mayor Dick Hubbard should be applauded for his announcement last week that Auckland City would act to stop the deterioration of the city's volcanic cones, but especially the popular tourist stop of Mt Eden, or Maungawhau.

Mt Eden has become decidedly "tatty". Paths have been worn into its sides, graffiti covers signs on top, the obelisk at the summit looks tired and the carpark is uninviting.

For years, groups including Friends of Maungawhau, the Maungawhau Advisory Group, the Eden-Albert Community Board and, before them, the Mt Eden Borough Council have called for something to be done. But almost nothing has been achieved beyond the feeling that Mt Eden is getting tattier by the day. Its views of the city and harbours are breathtaking but the mountain itself has suffered through years of good intentions and bad inertia.

While Mr Hubbard is right that something must be done, what he proposes is not necessarily the answer.

He is right that the mountain needs urgent management of its grass and trees. He is also right that the cows, used to keep the grass short, have trampled across pa terraces and destroyed archaeological sites. They have also torn up the soil in parts of the slopes of Mt Eden and etched tracks into its sides. The mayor has floated an idea of using grasses which don't grow out of control and need cows to keep them short.

The mayor is also right about sprucing up the summit. The cone with its 360-degree views, equalling those of the Sky Tower, should be an advertisement for visitors and a place Aucklanders can go to marvel at the city's beauty or take visitors to show it off. But currently this first stop on the city's tourist trail looks like an afterthought. The neglect is palpable. Welcome to Auckland, indeed. Auckland City should immediately upgrade the facilities on top of the summit.

Top priority should be new signs and facilities with useful information on the fragility of the cone and ways to protect it. Residents and tourists usually respond when explained the need for conservation. At the moment that message is buried beneath layers of graffiti or it barks out at you from unappealing signs.

But, of course, by far the biggest issue identified by the mayor is that of traffic on the cone. Here Mr Hubbard seems to have gone off track. The council is considering banning buses and cars from going up the cone, possibly replacing them with a rubber-wheeled "train" to take visitors up the mountain.

The problem with this approach is that it is illogical, placing the blame in the wrong place. It seeks to control the buses and cars rather than those in them.

What Mt Eden needs is better management of its one million visitors a year. There must be some way of encouraging people to keep to marked tracks and not wander down into the crater or tag the signs. The city should pay for full-time park rangers who would control the flow of visitors, manage tourists and explain the conservation of the cone.

Their job would not be to prevent the few residents who like to stroll up the mountain but to shepherd the throngs on its top.

New rangers could be paid for by a small levy on tourist buses, which would have the effect of both rationing numbers and raising money for the cone's upkeep.

This approach would take strategy, savvy and a lot of action; a far cry from the inertia of the last few years.