Mana Rākau is a community group which arose in 2020 from the campaign to save the Canal Road native trees in Avondale, Tāmaki Makaurau. We are dedicated to advocacy for the protection of trees in recognition of their inherent value and their importance for human wellbeing, mātauranga Māori, biodiversity, and climate change.
This submission focuses specifically on the importance of protecting mature trees in the urban landscape and recommends reinstatement of general tree protection as a minimum bottom line.
We wish to be heard by the select committee on this submission.
Trees are essential to life on earth and to the protection of biodiversity and in the struggle for global climate stability.
Trees have inherent value. They are not only valuable in terms of their utility to people, however they bring significant benefits to people and make our cities more liveable and sustainable and ecologically viable.
For us to have liveable communities, liveable cities and a liveable planet we need to keep mature trees living and thriving in our urban environments.
It is well understood, and has been known for some time, that the return of general tree protection would afford a meaningful and workable restoration of balance that gives trees the respect and protection they deserve while allowing appropriate and sustainable intensification of housing.
The goals of the natural and built environments bill lays out a series of tensions between ease of development and protection of nature. It is exceedingly important that the Government understands that the current weighting of priorities is heavily skewed against retention of mature trees in urban environments.
The current weight of priorities in our cities affords protection to only a small selection of mature trees captured by scheduling. Scheduling has ceased in Auckland and potentially other cities so there is little or no pathway for formal protection of additional trees in our cities. This is borne out by the systematic loss of the urban ngahere since the removal of general tree protection in 2012.
The new regime replacing the RMA must be designed explicitly to improve this situation by means of a return of general tree protection. It is conceivable that misplaced development priorities, and a reluctance to place even the most reasonable barriers in front of the free right of developers, could make the situation even worse for communities whose well-being depends on a healthy urban canopy.
As a starting point, it must be understood that failure to protect the living systems of our world negates the ability for our society, and its built environments, to exist in anything other than a diminished and miserable form.
For its significant failings, if the Government were to replace the Resource Management Act with a framework that fails to protect nature as its first cause, this would worsen the prospects for nature and humans.
Regarding the goals of the Bill, all are better met by the restoration of general or blanket tree protection across Aotearoa. General tree protection should be set as a minimum bottom line:
Protect and where necessary restore the natural environment, including its capacity to provide for the well-being of present and future generations.
This goal cannot be achieved if the loss of urban ngahere is not halted.
Better enable development within environmental biophysical limits including a significant improvement in housing supply, affordability and choice, and timely provision of appropriate infrastructure, including social infrastructure.
We need the coexistence of houses and trees if we are to have liveable cities. Development within biophysical limits is only possible if mature trees are afforded legal value and status and protection.
Give effect to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and provide greater recognition of te ao Māori, including mātauranga Māori.
Native trees have no regulatory or legal status recognising their endemic value nor their profound importance to tangata whenua and te ao Māori. A native tree on private land that is decades or even centuries old, unless it is one of a fraction that have been scheduled, has no protected status at all. Only general tree protection can restore this appalling disregard of taonga species.
Better prepare for adapting to climate change and risks from natural hazards, and better mitigate emissions contributing to climate change.
In addressing climate change we are seeking to avoid “untold human suffering” as the UN describes it. There is no credible version of climate action that does not involve retention of mature trees and the planting of millions more. We are deluded to imagine that carbon neutral cities could exist without a substantial, thriving, mature urban ngahere.
Improve system efficiency and effectiveness, and reduce complexity, while retaining appropriate local democratic input.
If efficiency means we retain the ease of tree destruction that currently exists in our cities and beyond then we will have failed in all other priorities.
Recommendations
Mana Rākau proposes a general tree protection legislation which requires regulator approval for removal of, or significant pruning of, all mature trees of DBH 300mm, and all native trees of DBH 250mm, and regionally rare trees (such as black Maire in Tāmaki).
We acknowledge that previous regimes have been poorly implemented in a way that made consent for legitimate tree removal overly costly and onerous. A new regime must be practical and workable and centred around a recognition of the profound value of trees to urban landscapes and communities while weighing this with the value of urban housing and other infrastructure.
For trees to have a protected status as a bottom line is a logical starting point for ensuring urban development has the possibility of remaining within environmental biophysical limits.
In the management of development consents, all Councils should be required to ensure that:
- all mature trees of DBH 300mm, and all native trees and regionally rare trees (such as black Maire in Tāmaki), be accounted for in development consent applications irrespective of their scheduled status or lack thereof;
- all scheduled trees impacted by a consent application automatically trigger public notification;
- where large mature trees exist on a site, Council requires developers to incorporate these trees into their designs. This could be incentivised. We need housing and trees to co-exist; and
- where trees are sacrificed in development:
- As a requirement of development consents, the Kg carbon equivalence of trees destroyed is replaced through plantings that will achieve the same carbon value within only 10 years of growth (rather than over an indeterminate lifetime), and taking into account the high mortality rates of new plantings. Plantings must be undertaken within one year of any given tree’s destruction; and alternatively,
- developers are required to pay for the carbon equivalence of trees lost on development sites towards permanent public acquisition of standing trees and/or acquisition and management of regenerating native forest, or plantation forest with native understory that will never be harvested and will in time revert to native forest.
Select responses
41. Decision-makers would be required ‘to give effect to’ the principles of Te Tiriti, replacing the current RMA requirement to ‘take into account’ those principles.
This should rather read ‘to give effect to Te Tiriti O Waitangi’ rather than “the principles of.”
46. It is important that the reformed RM system supports environments where people can choose to live close to employment, education, health and recreation, and the opportunities they provide. This will allow communities to develop in ways that support the prosperity and well-being of their people, enable social and cultural connections, and minimise environmental impact.
One of the most profound environmental impacts in our urban communities is the loss of mature trees and the urban canopy. Large mature trees provide a range of well-being benefits for people. They have amenity and aesthetic values which have unseen positive psychological effects on people, including giving us a sense of wellbeing. International research also shows that increases in urban tree coverage correlates with increased emotional resilience, and reduction in stress levels and rates of crime.
There is a direct correlation between deprivation and low tree cover at the suburb level. In Tāmaki Makaurau, the leafy suburbs are also the wealthy suburbs, and the poorer suburbs have the least canopy.
For us to have “density done well” we must have mature trees and meaningful access to greenspace as a complement to higher density housing. The current pattern of developer-led densification risks the form of our cities becoming a tree-poor huddle of houses with paltry strips of green interspersed. We know this makes a deficient habitat for people and other species let alone trees themselves. New Zealand’s cities will be poorer for it.
48 Infrastructure is recognised in the purpose and related provisions of the exposure draft, as a mandatory topic in the NPF, and for consideration in NBA plans. The integration of decisions on land-use planning with the delivery of infrastructure and its funding is a key reason for the SPA as described below. Policy work will continue while the select committee is conducting its inquiry.
As well as having inherent value, mature trees should also be formally acknowledged as urban infrastructure. Trees also provide infrastructure and ecosystem services such as sequestering carbon, filtering air, buffering us from wind, absorbing deluges – thereby lightening the weight on stormwater infrastructure, providing shade and urban cooling, and providing an ecological habitat for other species. Research has shown that investment in urban trees is more than repaid in the ecosystem services they provide.
109. Environmental limits must be prescribed for at least these matters: • air • biodiversity, including habitats and ecosystems. • coastal waters • estuaries • freshwater; and • soil
Trees and mature trees specifically must be included in this list. An urban environmental legislation that doesn’t explicitly include protection of trees would be untenable.
114. Clause 8 states that the NPF and all plans must promote environmental outcomes on the following topics: • the quality of air, freshwater, coastal waters, estuaries, and soils • ecological integrity • outstanding natural features and landscapes • areas of significant indigenous vegetation and significant habitats of indigenous fauna • the natural character of, and public access to, the coast, lakes, rivers, wetlands and their margins • the relationship of iwi and hapū, and their tikanga and traditions, with ancestral lands, water, sites, wāhi tapu, and other taonga • the mana and mauri of the natural environment • cultural heritage, including cultural landscapes • protected customary rights • greenhouse gas emissions • well-functioning urban areas and urban form • housing supply and affordability (including Māori housing aims) • development in rural areas enabling a range of economic, social and cultural activities • sustainable use of the marine environment • infrastructure services including renewable energy; and • natural hazards and climate change, and improved resilience to these.
Again, a healthy and thriving urban ngahere must be included in this list or else it will continue to be disregarded and diminished.
In the Consultation Draft section 8 Environmental Outcomes regarding urban areas lists the following:
(k) urban areas that are well-functioning and responsive to growth and other changes, including by— (i) enabling a range of economic, social, and cultural activities; and (ii) ensuring a resilient urban form with good transport links within and beyond the urban area: (l) a housing supply is developed to— (i) provide choice to consumers; and (ii) contribute to the affordability of housing; and (iii) meet the diverse and changing needs of people and communities; and (iv) support Māori housing aims:
There is no mention of ecological components of the urban realm. Specifically a healthy and thriving urban ngāhere including mature trees should be included in this section.
Concluding points
Change is long overdue in both the way we value our mature rākau, and the processes that are allowing them to be removed at the rate they currently are.
The urban ngāhere is cut down one tree at a time, but the consequences are profound for our cities. In less than a decade, a third of Auckland’s urban canopy has been lost. Trees are put last in any prioritisation equation because the bundle of benefits and services they provide are disregarded or taken for granted.
In a global biodiversity and climate crisis we must keep trees standing. Yet a failure of regulatory action has seen regional and central government seemingly act in cahoots to permit tree destruction on a grand scale. On current trajectories, and without a significant change in laws, strategies, rules, and regulations, the worst is yet to come.
Dozens of mature trees are lost on any given day in our cities. These trees disappear without ceremony or acknowledgement because they have no legal status. A thing which is afforded no tangible value by society will be treated as valueless.
Trees are cut down for inane reasons, often when an arboricultural or design solution could have seen trees retained and the landowners’ needs met. While trees are treated as a hindrance to new housing they will continue to be lost. However, it is in our interests for trees and houses to co-exist. No community should be asked to choose one or the other. We need a cultural and regulatory attitude that recognises that for liveable communities, liveable cities, and a liveable planet, we must keep trees standing.
With the removal of general tree protection in 2012 there has been a degradation in the ethics and quality of many related industries. General tree protection would not only preserve the rākau of our cities, but also protect and promote those who follow best practice within the industries of housing and other development, arboriculture, architecture and landscape design. Preservation of mature trees should be a top priority of legislative designers of environmental policies and also for the benefit of the development and arboriculture and architectural and landscape industries.
The rise of ‘cowboy arborists’ has directly coincided with the removal of general tree protection and the ensuing decimation of our urban ngahere. We need qualified ethical arborists to act as caretakers of the trees: regulatory change, including the reintroduction of general tree protection, is essential to achieve that.
Government’s failure to reinstate general tree protection has kept communities excluded from decision making, disregarded public outcry around tree loss, and, at worst, has treated with disdain those who are most knowledgeable about our urban forest and its value.
We call on the relevant ministers and the government to act now by restoring general tree protection. To not do so would be to fail to address one of the most visible signs for urban people of a society disregarding its biophysical limits.
Ngā Mihi,
Steve Abel
For Mana Rākau Aotearoa