WESTERN SPRINGS TREE MASSACRE

JOHN ELLIOTT: WESTERN SPRINGS TREE MASSACRE... GOING GOING GONE...

Wanton destruction of the already regenerating under storey of native trees in Western Springs forest a disgrace as our planet faces apocalypse.

If ever there was a local example of American environmentalist Gus Speth’s fears for human existence, the devastation of the native forest at Western Springs is a classic.

Speth said, “I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. But I was wrong.

“The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation and we scientists don’t know how to do that.” Speth would be devastated by the chainsaw massacre occurring in the Western Springs forest, and like me would blame the bureaucrats who have pushed for it, and the politicians who allowed this. A convenient lie has been built up that Western Springs forest action is actually about a native restoration project.

It is not. It is about the wanton and frightening destruction of an already regenerating native forest. There are thousands of substantial natives in the understorey, and already in building the road in to facilitate extraction, Council has smashed hundreds of these, including 15-20 feet kauri and pohutukawa.

What with huge fallen pine logs, and smashed regenerating natives, piles of chip and mulch, there will be little room for the supposed 8,000 trees and shrubs planned to replace them. I understand too, that many of the replacements will be native grasses, not trees.

Pippa Coom, our Waitemata Local Ward Auckland Councillor, continues to support the massacre. She and other elected board members who have aided and abetted this project should know better.

I feel I should return my Good Citizens Award, as I now have so little faith in our local elected members, and have difficulty not being scathingly critical of their performance.

I’m sure hundreds of local citizens would be appalled to see the state of the forest today. Of course it is being police protected 24/7 (at what cost to ratepayers?), so we can only see the evidence which concerned locals have been able to secrete out - photos and drone footage.

And just as I write this piece, the Herald has published an article from the Auckland and Coromandel regional conservation manager for Forest and Bird, Lissy Fehuker-Heather, pleading for an end to the ‘environmental vandalism of our trees’.

She calls on councillors and MPs to return nature amongst us, and instead of turning a blind eye to constant felling, to do their bit for nature.

Fehuker-Heather reports that 80% of our native birds, 88% of lizards, and all our native frogs and bats are threatened with extinction. She further reminds us that David Parker’s RMA reforms must reinstate Auckland’s blanket tree protection rules.

Some environmentalists are saying it’s five to midnight in our fight to save our planet, and yet here in our backyard Council is spending a couple of million dollars of ratepayer money, to destroy a regenerating native forest, in order to plant a new one. It’s a kind of madness I just don’t understand.

The Auckland Council secured a resource consent to fell all the iconic pines in the Western Springs forest.

Dead and dying trees are dealt to as and when necessary on tracks, streets, in parks and reserves all over New Zealand. A few of the Western Springs pines were at the end of their life. Most of the 200 remaining were not. The problem ones could have been removed as and when necessary at considerably less expense than the couple of million plus security costs ratepayers are now up for.

There will be rotting pine timber and firewood clogging the forest floor for decades when demolition is complete, with precious little room, when the chainsaw boys finish chipping and mulching, for the tiny native seedling replacements proposed to get traction.

The ungodly mess on the forest floor is a disgrace. I’m sure locals would be ashamed if they could see it now, but of course they can’t, because it’s policed 24/7. (JOHN ELLIOTT)  PN

Western Springs pohutukawa stump