Trails mark a crimson success

By PHILIP ENGLISH

A 10-year battle to save New Zealand's summer symbol - the pohutukawa - is being marked by the opening of trails to make their famous crimson blooms more accessible.

Project Crimson, which has fought to save coastal pohutukawa and rata trees since the mid-1990s, is behind the establishment of the trails.

On Saturday Conservation Minister Chris Carter and Project Crimson Trust chairman Devon McLean opened the first Crimson Trail, on Rangitoto Island in the Hauraki Gulf.

The opening attracted Crimson Project stalwarts and conservationists including new Auckland Conservation Board member and former Governor-General Dame Catherine Tizard.

Despite the few flowering pohutukawa on Rangitoto, home of the world's largest pohutukawa forest, which is visited by about 100,000 people a year, there were other attractions.

Poets, including 7-year-old Tayla Shaye Williams from Mountain View School in Mangere, recited poems they had written about Auckland's volcanic cones to mark this year as United Nations International Year of the Mountain.

Mr Carter later climbed Rangitoto, admitting that it was his first ascent "in spite of being in Auckland all my life".

Project Crimson has planted 300,000 trees since coastal pohutukawa were identified as being in danger about 10 years ago due to several threats, but notably possums.

Mr McLean said it was now time for people to rediscover the crimson flowers of pohutukawa and rata by walking the trails Project Crimson was developing.

The Auckland trails, which can be found by visiting the organisation's website - www.projectcrimson.org.nz - or by getting a brochure from libraries or Department of Conservation information centres, include Tamaki Drive, walks in Cornwall Park and trails in the Parnell Rose Garden.

Trails can also be found on Waiheke Island, Kawau Island, Motuihe Island, Tiritiri Matangi and Great Barrier Island.

Project Crimson intends to signpost the trails and is working on more in the west and north of Auckland.

By February next year more trails, where there are significant stands of pohutukawa and rata or individual trees, will be opened in Wellington, Mt Maunganui, Gisborne, Nelson, the West Coast and Otago.

Project Crimson executive director Debbie Teale said the late summer was behind the slow start to the pohutukawa flowering season this year.

"They will bloom late but they will bloom well.".

She said evidence of the crimson tide to come could be seen in the heavy budding on the trees.

Herald feature: Environment