Today is a strange day, a holiday at the end of the holidays, a holiday only in the top half of the North Island while the rest of the country goes about a normal Monday's work. A holiday that marks no particular event, just a colonial administrative province that no longer exists. In history and in modern consciousness, the anniversary of the founding of the Auckland province is heavily overshadowed by the national anniversary that happens a little over a week later.
But we could make it more meaningful if we wanted. The top half of the North Island might not be a province in an administrative sense but it shares some things, not least we hope, this newspaper. The Herald was founded when the young Auckland settlement still regarded the country north of Lake Taupō as its hinterland and that is still the paper's daily circulation area.
Today's cities and districts of the north have much else in common, especially in their environment. Northerners who drive home from Wellington sense the vegetation changing as they pass Taupō . The trees and the rest of the surroundings became more luxuriant, the air warmer and wetter and the coasts, wherever we arrive, are unmistakably those of the north. Whether it is Gisborne, Ohope, the Coromandel coast or anywhere in the Auckland and Northland regions, the bays, estuaries, mangroves and pohutukawa are distinctively northern.
The Coromandel, Auckland and Northland also share the good fortune to be the habitat of the most splendid native tree of them all, kauri, now threatened by a disease suspected to be spread by human feet among others. The need to eradicate this disease from northern soil, not merely "manage" it, is a uniting concern for these regions today. If managing means closing or severely restricting public access to kauri permanently, it would be a sad day for science as well as all who enjoy a walk in the splendid native forests of the north.
Auckland, Coromandel and Waikato regions share another environmental jewel, the Hauraki Gulf. Their joint responsibilities for its water quality, marine life and human uses are already organised through a standing forum of the region's councils and other interest groups and its efforts deserve more attention.
