Maunga revegetation project not a patch on Tiritirimatangi's

Some of Tūpuna Maunga Authority's supporters have compared the Authority’s maunga revegetation project to the Tiritirimatangi Island one. So let's see how that comparison stacks up.

In the 10 years to 1994, volunteers planted between 250,000 and 300,000 natives on Tiritirimatangi, resulting in a 60% forest cover today. The remaining 40% was left as grasslands for birds like takahē, which prefer an open environment.

By comparison, the Authority claims it intends to plant 13,000 natives (mostly NOT trees) on Ōwairaka / Mt Albert.

At the same time it plans to destroy all of the current non-native vegetation - up to 75% of the entire tree cover on some maunga, and nearly half of the entire tree cover on Ōwairaka. Planting plans show that the new plantings will not go in the same areas as where the exotics currently are, so retaining those trees won’t impede native planting progress.

Tiri is 22 hectares, and Ōwairaka is 9.547 ha - 43% the size of Tiritirmatangi.

This means between 108,500 and 130,200 natives would need to be planted at Ōwairaka for its native restoration to come even close to Tiritirimatangi's.

The Authority claims to have planted 5180 natives at Ōwairaka in the three years spanning 2019-21. Therefore what you see there today is 40% of the intended end result. But we've counted only 1500 new natives, so assume the other 3680 must have died.

Assuming there's a similar 71% attrition rate for the remaining 7820 that are yet to be planted, then one could assume the net result will be a total of around 3768 surviving native plants at Ōwairaka, which are mostly not trees.