Gisborne letters on new waka bridge, healing societies

The main structure of the $3.4m pedestrian bridge that went up this week, connecting Gisborne's Kaiti Hill to the Puhi Kai Iti Cook Landing Site.

Letters to the Editor

OPINION

Vandalising of national historic reserve

So the metal monstrosity that is the so-called 1000-year bridge is finally nearing completion, with the body, prow and stern being hoisted into place.

Also near complete achievement is the visual obliteration of the Cook landing monument.

The waka bridge and other additions completely overshadow the landing monument.

Will the pohutukawa on the hillside also have to be sacrificed for visibility’s sake on both sides? The gods forbid!

When unveiled in 1906, the obelisk stood alone on the papa foreshore, near the inlet where Cook’s party rowed in. No more, having been cut off from the sea by port works and reclamation, and now “re-visioning”.

Congratulations to all who had a hand in vandalising this national historic reserve - you have turned the site of what was a stand-alone obelisk into a clutter that more resembles a theme park than a place where one can reflect on one of the significant events of the country’s past.

This whole project was bulldozed through in the lead-up to the sestercentennial with little input from the general public, who were given sparse detail on what was planned and almost no space or time to say anything.

Even the obelisk - simply a marker of where and when the landing occurred - has been altered by the current reshaping of history, by someone deciding to surround its base with “bitter” words from Joseph Banks.

I look forward to the day - sometime in the future - when the past is accepted as something that cannot be undone, as the dead cannot be resurrected, and the damage and hurt never fully recompensed.

I wonder when we will have (as the Americans say) “closure” on the landing events 255 years ago.

Roger Handford

Asset for our town

Re: Waka bridge is taking shape, will be ready for summer - September 13 story.

I think this is awesome. People come from all over the world to see our region and learn about our history ... and to see the sun come up first!

Despite all the naysayers, we really do live in a very beautiful and unique part of the world. It is so good to see the Cook landing monument being acknowledged and it being easily accessible. The road is quite dodgy to cross with all the trucks, so a bridge from Kaiti Hill is perfect.

This is something useful that is an asset for our town. I am looking forward to walking over it.

Our Kaiti Hill tracks are my favourite places to walk in Gizzy. We are very lucky to have it right on our doorstep.

Tanya Hawthorne

Tomorrow’s Garden of Eden

There is no doubt that any managing of climate change to save our world will cause much privation, especially to that ever-growing percentage of our population who are variously classed as the poor, the underprivileged, or “the common people”.

While steps such as planting more permanent forests, ploughing less arable land for food crops, minimising livestock, and more “Frankenscience” applied to food production will no doubt help to produce that “New Eden” of the future, it will, in the now, minimise job opportunities. AI advances will soon obviate the need for many of the “drones” of middle management, potentially boosting the underclass numbers exponentially. Much of the population could be indentured to the state in short order.

We must wonder what percentage of the existing, and boosted numbers of the poor and future “newly-poor”, will be granted access through the Pearly Gates of that near-future “New Eden”.

Whatever approach is adopted to healing our planet and our societies, it will need to be somewhat more socialistic and democratic than what is developing at present.

Dennis Pennefather