Budgets reveal extravagant tree felling costs to ratepayers
Pigeon Mountain / Ōhuirangi before…
…and after. Note the flaxes and low-growing shrubs in the foreground - planted to “replace” the exotic trees.
Honour the Maunga has questioned Tūpuna Maunga Authority’s extravagant use of ratepayers’ money on needlessly felling 345 healthy mature trees on Ōwairaka / Mt Albert, saying documents it has sourced shows that it would take an average ratepayer up to 8.5 years to cover the cost of removing a single large tree.
Auckland Council grants the Authority more than $10 million every year in an operational budget, plus more than $1 million funding for non-operational activities. Honour The Maunga has obtained Tūpuna Maunga Authority budget documents that show:
Total budget allowances of around $650,000 for direct costs associated with felling Ōwairaka’s trees, including $30,000 for removing one particular tree.
This number swells to at least $1.1 million when the cost of specialist reports, resource consent and administrative costs are taken into account.
A $360,000 revegetation budget for native plants on Ōwairaka.
8.5 years worth of one household’s rates to remove a single tree!
The average rates paid by a Mt Albert homeowner is around $3500 per year so it could take an average rate payer more than 8.5 years to cover the costs of a single large tree being removed on the maunga.
The same costing model has been used for tree removals on other Auckland manga under the Authority’s control.
“We question the integrity of using ratepayers’ money in this way, especially when it has become clear that the majority of people want the trees to stay,” says Honour The Maunga spokeswoman Anna Radford. “This is even more of an issue given the dire financial straits Auckland Council is in. It is irresponsible to be wasting many millions on destroying trees just because they are not native.”
Radford says the group supports Tūpuna Maunga Authority’s long-term vision of native regeneration on the maunga. However, it questions the environmentally destructive process of removing nearly half of its tree cover during a climate emergency.
Ms Radford went on to note that the Authority was wasting ratepayers’ money spent on native plantings due to negligent and neglectful revegetation practices.
Money wasted on wrong plants in wrong places
“Many of the species planted at Ōwairaka are the wrong kind of plants for the open, unsheltered places they were put in. To make matters worse, the plantings are not well looked after. So many have died after the first lot of plantings that a water truck ended up coming in regularly the following summer in response to public complaints.”
“Additional budget will likely needed for replacing the huge number of plants that have died.”
But wait! There's more
The $1.1 million Owairaka / Mt Albert tree felling costs are just the beginning. Here's what else your rates are being wasted on:
Felling Mangere's 153 exotic trees (65% of the maunga's total tree cover)
$722,461 for felling contractor TreeScape alone. Other costs yet to be ascertained.
Felling Mt Wellington / Maungarei's 180 exotic trees
$917,800 in known costs. Actual costs are likely to be higher.
Felling Pigeon Mountain / Ohuiarangi's 112 exotic trees (65% of the maunga's total tree cover)
$516,278 in known costs. Actual costs are likely to be far higher.
Cost of defending the Judicial Review to safeguard Owairaka's trees
Auckland Council: $182,266 + GST
Tupuna Maunga Authority: $455,286 + GST
Cost of defending the Judicial Review appeal decision
Auckland Council: $71,751.23 + GST as of 1 October 2021. The council advises more costs to come.
Tupuna Maunga Authority: $158,781 + GST as of 1 October 2021.
Ironically, hundreds of self-seeded native seedlings could be seen happily growing under the protective shelter of mature exotic and native trees on the maunga.
Radford says people living near Mangere, Mt Wellington and Pigeon Mountain, which have already been largely cleared of exotic trees, have also contacted Honour The Maunga to say how upset they are at the resulting devastation and lack of care for the new plantings on those maunga.
Very little replanting appears to have been done there and any new plantings have been badly neglected.
For months after the initial plantings, dozens of dead plants, many still in their plastic pots, could be seen lying in patches of weed-sprayed grass on those maunga. Furthermore, local residents report that many native birds no longer visit because their habitats have been destroyed.
The Authority plans to remove around 2500 exotic trees off the volcanic cones it manages. To date the tree felling resource consents have been approved on a non-notified basis, despite the vast scale of the proposed fellings.
Auckland Council routinely votes to approve the Authority’s multi-million dollar Operational Plans, with few dissenting votes (so far only Cr Chris Fletcher has dissented).
The tree felling is hugely unpopular yet the Council ignores ratepayers’ views during their so-called public “consultations”.
Tūpuna Maunga Authority’s Auckland Council representatives are failing the people of Auckland
She goes on to stress that Honour The Maunga has absolutely no issue with Treaty settlements or co-governance entities involving Māori. Nor does the organisation have any issue with the Authority receiving public funding.
“Our issue is with a specific set of hugely destructive processes and ratepayer-funded expenditure in the Authority’s operational plan.”
Tūpuna Maunga Authority is a co-governance organisation whose mandate is to manage maunga land held in trust for the benefit of 13 iwi and hapu in the Tamaki collective, and also for the benefit of the other people of Auckland.
“The term ‘other people of Auckland’ includes Māori who were not part of that Treaty settlement, as well as Aucklanders from other ethnicities.
At Pigeon Mountain, many examples of dead plants, still in their plastic pots, can be seen at the “revegetated” maunga. Photo credit: Penny Rodway.
“It is deceitful for detractors to position this as a race issue. We believe Tūpuna Maunga Authority’s Auckland Council members have failed in their duty to ensure the ‘other people of Auckland’ are being adequately represented and their rates are being prudently spent when implementing the Authority’s long-term plans.”
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Many dead plants, sitting in plastic pots at Mangere mountain. Photo credit: Karen Caso.
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