Landscape's crowning glories

As Aucklanders file into work on a drowsy midsummer morning, it's bedlam on top of the mountain. Joggers, walkers, tourists - they climb for different reasons: the free 360 degree view, exercise, a sense of freedom, to commune with nature.

But Mt Eden is sinking under the weight of its popularity, according to the volcanic cone's formidable support base.

Walkers and runners hug the edges of the crumbling tarmac as buses trundle up the narrow summit road past uncaring cows. Up top the tourist hordes clamber out as diesel fumes waft across the carpark. And there's noise: up to nine buses at a time bring tourists from the airport to Mt Eden for a first look at Auckland.

On the path circling the crater, Japanese tourists read a sign and then do precisely what it says not to do, skidding down an informal track into the crater to throw rocks around at the bottom. The sign is printed in five languages, including Japanese.

If it's a crime it hardly seems a hanging offence. What next - ban children sliding into the cones on cardboard?

Well yes, in Mt Eden's case. At 196m the tallest of the isthmus cones, the mountain may appear unmoved by human and bovine visitation but its self-appointed guardians see signs of decay everywhere.

Erosion threatens not only the crater but the scoria cone itself. Kit Howden, of volunteer group Friends of Maungawhau, can point to areas where fence posts and tree roots hang in mid-air.

Cattle - the cheapest and crudest lawnmowers - are the main culprits; mountainbikers, offroad skateboarders, runners and walkers all play a part.

Important archaeological and heritage features dating from its centuries as a thriving pa have been damaged or disappeared. Kumara pits are a magnet for the BMXers.

The summit road suffers from what experts call terminal pavement distress, says Liz Parkin, an Auckland City Council open space planner. A 1986 management plan limited access to the summit road to small buses and restricted cattle - but the plan has never been enforced.

"It's a weed paradise," says Howden, who co-ordinates a native revegetation programme in the disused quarry.

"We've got every kind of classified nasty weed covering the mountain."

All of which may seem like the preoccupations of locals with little else to worry about, until you realise there are mini-Mt Edens smouldering away all over Auckland.

As the city's growing population is squeezed into existing suburbs, and new roads and motorways built, the volcanic field it is built around, and over, is feeling the pinch.

And the cones are more than recreation spots or landscape features - they have international geological interest and almost all have significant Maori history.

After more than a century of exploitation and indifference, recent tremors at Mt Roskill (over roading) and Mt Wellington (property development) highlight the need to better manage what remains of the field. While the Manukau City Council made considerable gains in the past decade, securing the Otuataua stonefields and restricting quarrying elsewhere, Auckland City's care of cones such as Mt Albert and Mt Hobson has come in for criticism.

But no cone is under greater scrutiny than Mt Eden. Taken for granted by most residents, it is a key tourist attraction, recreation area, a geological and archaeological treasure of significance to Maori and European. It means, says Parkin, "a lot of things to a lot of people". And all want a say in its future.

The only cone allowing buses all the way to the summit, it attracts an estimated 1.2 million visitors a year, similar to Tongariro National Park.

The Friends of Maungawhau and the Maungawhau Advisory Group have badgered away on the mountain's behalf with some success in recent years. A footpath and a boardwalk have helped stabilise the crater rim. But pleas to the city council to enforce the 1986 management plan have fallen on deaf ears.

Removing cattle means the grass grows and helps stabilise the slopes but raises the fire risk while joggers continue to pound the slopes. Signs asking people to respect heritage features are vandalised and destroyed. Locals say contracting out of maintenance has added to the problems.

Archaeologist Russell Foster says concerns for the mountain are more than parochial.

Foster has just finished recording archaeological sites for the conservation plan and says they desperately need protection. Maori terracing, kumara storage pits and the fragile crater have been damaged or destroyed by cattle, walkers and mountainbikers and slopes eroded by grazing.

Last October, when the centre-left City Vision ticket gained control of the Auckland City Council, it signalled a better deal for Mt Eden and the other isthmus cones in the form of a targeted rate. On Monday, the council will begin consultation on a new management plan and conservation plan for Mt Eden.

Among the ideas: a visitor centre to educate people about the mountain's history and geology; pedestrian tracks to control movement; restoration of heritage sites; more signage; restricted access to the crater and closing the summit road to tour buses.

Which, to some onlookers, is akin to the council's clampdown on speedway noise at Western Springs.

"We've got these jandal pushers with no undies going around waving flags and shutting the city down," says John Potter of Scenic Coachlines. If buses can't go up the mountain, tourists won't come into Auckland, he says, with a percentage of operators heading straight from the airport for Rotorua or Waitomo Caves.

"Tourists arrive from a concrete jungle weary after a long-haul flight," says Potter. "All of a sudden they're on this mountain in the middle of a city which has natural history and Maori history and a 360 degree view of Auckland from coast to coast. It's a wonderful introduction to their holiday in New Zealand."

The Friends of Maungawhau includes experts in archaeology, town planning, landscape architecture and park management, while volunteers get involved in replanting, weeding and track restoration. It is not known how many wear jandals.

Howden says the tourism industry is freeloading, with tour buses paying nothing towards upkeep of the summit road or mountain.

"Ratepayers' money is being used for people to make private profit out of a public resource. Tourists are exploiting a resource of world heritage standard without paying anything back."

Ngati Whatua heritage and resource manager Ngarimu Blair observes the conflicts of unfettered access to Mt Eden from his home - the former caretakers' house on the mountain's northern slopes.

"The [tourism] industry isn't regulating itself," he says. "We need to look at how much we invest in [the mountain] to protect it."

Blair is a direct descendent of Hua Kaiwaka, whose tribe established the Maungawhau pa, which contributed to a period of unprecedented unity and prosperity in Tamaki Makaurau's development.

While pleased to be "the first Maori back on the pa for two centuries", he's miffed by the token recognition of the mountain's importance to Maori. "This is like our Stonehenge, our pyramids. People come here and that sense of heritage isn't available to them."

One idea is to have the pa replicated in some way. If a visitor centre is built, visitors could be escorted through palisades or a carved gateway, "rather than pictures or a CD rom in the proposed visitors centre".

"For everyone arriving here it could be a powerful symbol: this is a Maori place."

Area councillor Glenda Fryer says appreciation of the mountain could be considerably enhanced by signage, education and guided walks.

"People go up to this concrete bunker and look at the view and know nothing about it - I don't think it's doing Auckland a great service. People need to learn about its geology and Maori history in a meaningful way."

A former chairwoman of the Maungawhau Advisory Group, Fryer believes tourists should continue to enjoy the mountain but in a managed way. She says there's general agreement that buses should be kept from the summit "but no one knows how".

The proposed visitor centre could provide information about not only Maungawhau's history and geology but the entire volcanic field. Buses would stop at the centre and tourists take guided walks along improved footpaths. Those unable to walk up the mountain could hop on a shuttle or tourist train, she says.

But Bus and Coach Association executive director John Collyns claims the shuttle idea isn't practical. "People who go on coach tours ... may not want to walk the last 700 ft up the side of a mountain." And with up to six or seven tour buses arriving at a time, there could be queues and long delays for tours under time pressure.

At the same time, Collyns says tour operators could stagger arrival times to ease congestion in the summit carpark.

There are alternatives, he says, such as traffic flow management. "People need to think what their calls for a ban will mean to Auckland."

Tourism Auckland has held discussions with Friends of Maungawhau and Ngati Whatua and is involved in a survey of tour operators with the city council and Bus and Coach Association.

"Our view is [to] measure the problem and find a solution to overcome people's concerns," says executive director Graeme Osborne. "The risk is it becomes an emotional issue and kneejerk reactions dominate."

It's important that the Mt Eden experience is not compromised for future generations, says Osborne. "We also see a significant opportunity to tell more about the mountain."

* Consultation begins on Monday and closes on March 7.