March 11, 2015
No excuse for rakau destruction
Environmentalist and human rights advocate Marama Davidson says a developer's bid to cut down a 500 year old kauri in the Auckland bush suburb of Titirangi shows that National's resource management Act reforms have already gone too far.
Ms Davidson, who was the Green candidate for Tamaki Makaurau last election, yesterday joined the protest that is preventing contractors from cutting fown the tree.
She told Radio Waatea host Titewhai Harawira it's less a protest than an exercise of kaitiakitanga by Maori and Pakeha community members alike.
She says the destruction of a tree to build a luxury home shows up the hollowness of the government's position that the RMA is holding up development and affecting housing affordabilty.
"We can't exploit the housing crisis to aid developer greed. We can address housing affordability without endangering our rakau and our environment. If anyone is using the hosuing crisis, particularly in Auckland, to justify this literal slashing of trees, that is absolute nonsense," Ms Davidson says.
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