Rudman's city: Let's fast-track planting a pohutukawa

Of all the images from One Tree Hill in the last few days, the one that lingers is that of mayoral hopeful Victoria Carter on television, keening away at the foot of the doomed pine like some bereaved Mediterranean widow.

In funereal black leather and as gaunt and windswept as the dying tree, she wailed on about the "legalised vandalism" mayor Christine Fletcher and city officials were about to commit.

Shame about the crumpled paper hanky though. Black silk would have better fitted these pre-election theatrics.

It was a cheap attack. It also lacked credibility. We were being asked to believe that city officials like arborist Cameron Parr, who had spent years nursing the tree after chainsaw attacks in 1994 and 1999, had suddenly become crazed axemen.

The reality was that for reasons of public safety, the tree's long-time guardians had reluctantly accepted that it was time to disconnect the life support.

Councillor Carter wanted to delay the inevitable so that people could stand in front of the tree and say goodbye.

I wonder what her response would have been if the officials had opted instead to delay the execution, invited us up for a last hug of the patient, and a branch had fallen, bopping one of her constituents - or a busload of tourists - on the head.

It is not as though we were not given a chance to say our farewells.

Six months ago, a report giving the tree less than three years was widely publicised. The experts were then worrying that the supporting wires would not hold it up in a violent storm.

Councillors then gave officials the authority to fell the tree if it became a danger. That is what has now happened.

Over the past few days, experts inside and outside council agreed that the pine had become a serious risk to "life and property" and should go immediately. The mayor supported the officials.

As a parliamentarian, she chaired the select committee inquiry into the Cave Creek disaster. Having met the parents of the students killed in that calamity she says she needed no help in deciding "when one should apply the precautionary principle." All of which sounds fair enough to me.

What I do find incongruous is that the sensible fast-track procedures available for felling the tree in an emergency are not matched when it comes to planting a replacement.

The officials talk of it taking "a few years." That sounds like much too long for me. The thought of Aucklanders wittering on for years about the relative merits of pine over totara or pohutukawa fill me with a desire to migrate.

Apparently the tangata whenua have to be consulted, and not just Ngati Whatua but also the other tribes that had turns, over the centuries, as king of No Tree Hill - or Maungakiekie as it was known in the pre-colonial days.

So too does the Historic Places Trust as guardian of adjacent former kumara pits and the Cornwall Trust board.

Then there are technical problems. This is an extremely exposed site, with poor soil and soak hole-like drainage. Survival will be strictly for the fittest.

Do we plant small or large, one or many? A small tree (minimum height of 1m) will grow faster, a larger tree (maximum height of 7m) will be slightly more imposing but the shock of transplanting will delay its development.

Another option being mooted is to plant a mixed grove of natives and pines and let nature do the selection.

I've also suggested the "do nothing" approach, or alternatively a Len Lye windwand or a cellphone tower, although these options have not attracted a flood of support.

Two messages seem clear. Most people want a new tree, and the majority want a pohutukawa.

The experts agree that the hardy pohutukawa is the tree most likely to survive on the site. So let's just get on with it.

Herald Online feature: Tree on the hill

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