Kauri battle: Tree protestor 'elated'

Protester Michael Tavares after climbing down from a Kauri tree he has occupied for the last four days. Photo / Dean Purcell

The man who spent four days up a kauri tree to save it from destruction is elated after developers pledged to keep the tree.

But protesters have promised to take their campaign to Parliament, with the country's environmental laws in their sights this evening.

Save our Kauri spokeswoman Aprilanne Bonar said Michael Tavares was not worried after being charged today with trespassing and summoned to appear in court next month.

"He's great. He's resting," Ms Bonar said this evening. "He's elated and really optimistic for our future here."

Mr Tavares scaled the kauri in Titirangi, West Auckland, on Monday. Others gathered on the ground at the Paturoa Rd property to protest the proposed felling of the kauri and a nearby nikau.

An upbeat Mr Tavares came down to cheers after property owners John Lenihan and Jane Greensmith issued an open letter today. The letter included a promise to keep the kauri and a nearby old rimu tree but also said compromise was needed, so other trees might be felled.

Ms Bonar welcomed the open letter.

"What's clear is that the kauri and rimu will stay," she said. "It symbolises the need for more dialogue in decision-making."

Ms Bonar understood an "elated" Mr Tavares was already thinking about the next cause worth fighting for.

More than 26,000 people signed an online petition to save the kauri.

The petition on the Toko website said the Resource Management Act (RMA) was never designed to let developers destroy trees of significant ecological value.

Ms Bonar said public reaction to the petition showed wide support for an RMA overhaul.

The Green Party today said "failings" in the RMA had to be addressed.

"This travesty has highlighted how easy it is for councils to deny communities their voice by choosing not to notify consents," Green Party environment spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said.

Auckland's deputy mayor Penny Hulse told Radio New Zealand the council would review its consent process in the wake of claims the Paturoa Rd development was rushed, fudged, and pushed through without public consultation.

The age of the tree was reported as anywhere from 70 to 500 years old but an ecologist and kauri scholar said the tree had been alive since at least the 1860s, and possibly centuries before.

University of Auckland scientist Dr Cate Macinnis-Ng said the Titirangi tree had an appearance inconsistent with a rika, or "young" tree up to 150 to 200 years old.

With the fungus-like dieback disease killing kauri around Auckland and Northland, Dr Macinnis-Ng said felling the Titirangi tree could have "significant' impacts for the species.

"It appears to be a healthy tree in a diseased area."

Meanwhile, the National Party rejected Labour Party MP David Cunliffe's petition for an urgent Parliamentary inquiry into the tree's proposed felling.

"It beggars belief that National MPs would block this work when their own ministers say there is a problem to be fixed," Mr Cunliffe said this afternoon.