Editorial: Political taint poisons tree replacement

Opinion

It is more than 10 years since an angry young man stole up the slopes of One Tree Hill with a chainsaw and did the ultimately fatal damage to an Auckland landmark. Until that morning the elegant solitary pine that had featured on so many depictions of the city had been free of any political associations. But from the moment it was vandalised in the name of Maori protest its fate, and eventually the matter of its replacement, acquired an unfortunate and quite unnecessary political taint. So it did again this weekend when it was discovered that some individual or group had gone quietly up the hill and planted a pohutukawa sapling at the summit.

If the initiative had been prompted by simple frustration at the Auckland City Council's failure to plant a replacement, it could be well understood. But the unknown planter(s) had saddled the sapling with a plaque bearing the words "one nation", which mayor Dick Hubbard, for one, found "politically inappropriate". Events yesterday proved him right. By afternoon, that little tree, too, had been destroyed.

But even had it been planted without a political message, it would not have been permitted to survive. Mr Hubbard said the council would have removed it within the week, for it had not been authorised as the council intends, in consultation with the Auckland iwi, Ngati Whatua. And it turns out that the planting of another tree on Maungakiekie has somehow acquired significance for Ngati Whatua's claims to Auckland under the Treaty of Waitangi. How the issue could have acquired this symbolism is not clear. When the pine was fatally attacked, by an intruder of Ngapuhi, the Auckland tribe was as aggrieved as non-Maori at the insult done to its skyline.

Now it seems that Ngati Whatua wants no part in a replanting if rival iwi are included in the ceremony. That, at least, was the reason given for the tribe's withdrawal from a replanting ceremony in June 2002 after the city council had nurtured some suitable seedlings and organised an all-inclusive occasion.

The council was all set to plant nine saplings - six pohutukawa and three totara - expecting one to become dominant and to survive in the wind and poor soil of the summit. Ngati Whatua reportedly indicated it had no objection to the replanting going ahead at that time but it would not take part, lest its participation be seen as compromising its status under the treaty. The council was unwilling to proceed without the tangata whenua and nothing more has happened from that day to this, except that council arborists continue to grow seedlings in preparation for the day that political sensitivities permit someone to turn some soil.

In these circumstances it is regrettable that Mr Hubbard's council should have set its face so resolutely against a private initiative, even with its political message. Was a shrub planted in the name of "one nation" really such an offence? Well, clearly it was to whoever ripped it out yesterday, but did the council need to pronounce the planting unacceptable? If the council's arborists are correct, the prospect of a solitary sapling surviving is unlikely anyway. Hence their insistence on planting a grove up there. The sentinel pine, of course, was the survivor of a similar crop, planted sometime after a totara, sacred to precolonial inhabitants, was felled by a careless settler.

All going well, says Mr Hubbard, Ngati Whatua will settle its treaty claims within a few months and the replanting may happen before the end of this year. Let's hope it can be done in a way that removes the political demons from whatever may grow there. Whatever the species of the successful replacement, whatever the form it takes, it will be different from the memorable bending pine that survived more by accident than design.

Let's not lumber the next tree with more social baggage than a vulnerable landmark can bear.