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Auckland Mayor Len Brown is welcoming the prospect of once more seeing a tree on top of Maungakiekie – One Tree Hill.
Te Tamaki Makaurau Maunga Authority yesterday announced that mana whenua iwi had agreed the time was right to try to reestablish rakau on the mountain.
A lone pine that had had grown there for more than a century was removed in 2000, after it failed to recover from a chainsaw attack by activist Mike Smith the previous year.
Mr Brown says Aucklanders are always asking him when there will be a tree again on the summit, and he now has an answer.
"Matariki next year. There will be a number of them we will plant, a small group of trees that will help to preserve the one tree that will mature over 15 to 20 years and become the single tree on the hill we know and love," he says.
The planting will be a mix of totara and pohutukawa as well as shelter trees.
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