November 14, 2019
Hobson’s Pledge weighs in to tree battle
The chair of the Tūpuna Maunga Authority says it’s unfortunate outside groups like Hobson’s Pledge are trying to piggyback on local protests over the removal of trees on Ōwairaka-Mount Albert.
Paul Majurey is rejecting claims the removal of 345 trees, more than 200 of them identified as pest species in the Regional Plan amounted to a massacre of vegetation and birds.
He says the resource consent included full ecological assessments, and the plan to revegetate the city’s volcanic cones has the support of the Tree Council and Forest and Bird.
Attempts to argue the case with neighbours on environmental grounds are not helped by Hobson’s Pledge calling on its supporters to join the protest blockade.
“They take issue with treaty settlements, with the constitutional place of Māori in the country and the whole basis of the Treaty of Waitangi. That of course is irrelevant to what we are doing here. We’ve got a treaty settlement that was undertaken between mana whenua and the crown. So the whole place of treaty settlements, the constitutional place of the treaty is very orthodox and well accepted as we know by the great majority of New Zealanders,” Mr Majurey says.
The Tūpuna Maunga Authority does not want to escalate the stand-off, but it may depend on police whether the contractors can get in to do the job.
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