Eloise Gibson: If left up to landowners, few new trees will be protected

Councils are likely to face an expensive process adapting their district plans to new tree laws.

Clause 52 of the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill 2009 relieves them of the need to process up to 4000 permits a year for chopping and trimming - potentially saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

But it also creates huge pressure to swell the lists of protected trees.

As of January 2012, blanket rules that stop people from felling big trees that are not individually listed will be gone.

Tree lovers and community groups will waste no time before submitting lists of trees that they think warrant special protection, mindful that there will soon be no fallback.

Most councils let people suggest new trees for protection when they update the lists every few years.

Each tree must be assessed, mapped and described, a consultation process carried out, and a possible court appeal defended at the end.

Auckland City Council has hinted that it is not willing to take the contentious route to protect trees, and in most cases it will let the landowner make the call. That approach is likely to see few new trees protected.

Other councils, such as North Shore City, are likely to do significant work to "retrofit" their tree lists before 2012. They have not yet estimated what the costs will be.

Yet others may be reluctant to spend tens of thousands of dollars updating district plan lists knowing they will be superseded by a Super City in 2011 - before the existing protections run out.

The Government says the point is that councils will be forced to think carefully about which trees are really outstanding and leave the others alone. Councils have been warned not to try to shortcut the process by listing loose groups - for example, all pohutukawa in one part of Devonport, or all native trees in a Titirangi bush block.

Either way, the Super City is likely to find itself administering a long and unwieldy list of protected trees between Rodney and Franklin.

Whether that is cheaper than a compromise under which general protections were kept, but streamlined to cut down the need for resource consents - as the Tree Council and the Arboricultural Society want - remains to be seen.

* Eloise Gibson is the Herald's environment reporter