Replacing the tree: What readers think

A selection of e-mails sent to the Herald:

Please register my vote for a flowering cherry tree for One Tree Hill, in memory of the trees in the main street of Pukekohe that were sacrificed because of their messy petals.

At least at the summit of One Tree Hill there are no commercial enterprises (apart from maybe a Mr Whippy van) that will find the blooms disturbing.

Kim Saunders

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What about a steel sculpture?

Graham Beattie

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We most definitely should replace the tree. It feels like a part of me is going to be missing until a new life is planted on that hill (I am an Aucklander, having lived there all my life until nine months ago).

We should also remember that for every tree taken we should plant two to replace it.

Kim Scanlen

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We've visited Auckland twice in the last 10 years and feel sympathy with the people who will miss this special landmark.

Dave and Hazel. England

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The tree should have performed one last function. Mike Smith should have been hanged from it. Pity we don't have public hangings.

Yes, replace it with an English oak to symbolise the early settlers who created this great country.

Tony Bullock

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Perhaps in the spirit of the treaty, two trees ought to be planted. One being another pine tree, the second a pohutukawa, totara or rata.

Mark Taylor

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Yes, we should replace the tree even though we are at present living a long way from home. We lived under One Tree Hill and it was part of our landscape.

It is unfortunate that a minority cannot see the significance of such landscapes and we would like to see it replaced.

Raewyn and Graham Henry

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Perhaps local artists could construct and erect a silhouette of the tree from natural materials to retain the profile of the landmark until a new tree species can be decided upon and grown to a suitable height.

Megan Wilkins

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I say we should leave well alone - it'll only give them something else to target later on.

No matter who plants whatever on the summit, one party or another will take offence. Best to move on and live with the memories.

Margaret Smit

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Of course the tree should be replaced. All this talk of taking two years to get resource consent is bureaucracy gone made. Why can't there be a new tree on the summit within the week?

Michael Coker

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I suggest planting an olive tree, which all around the world is a symbol of peace, as a new start on race relations.

Enrico Canestri

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Yes, we do need to replace that dearly beloved tree on One Tree Hill. I'm sitting here in my office in Sydney with various postcards on the wall reminding me of "home" and of course One Tree Hill has pride of place with Rangitoto.

Julie Clayton

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Now that it's gone, do not replace it. Just think how we will be able to inform long-suffering visitors about the hill that's called one tree, without a tree.

Mark Holm

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I was in New Zealand in '95 and I got up to One Tree Hill on the same day that I arrived in Auckland. It is hard to replace a tree that has brought so many memories with another tree.

I think there should be a plaque of some sort, to explain about One Tree Hill and why it was dismantled. This way, the memory of the tree will still live on in many minds.

Manuel D. Valencia

Sierra Madre, USA

Herald Online feature: Tree on the hill

Send us your suggestions

Should we replace the tree on One Tree Hill?

E-mail Bernard Orsman