Honour The Maunga

23/04/2026

As spotted when walking at Ōtāhuhu Mt Richmond this morning with some other maunga tree supporters. We saw two Tūpuna Maunga Authority contractors spraying herbicide on the slope near where a grove of around 100 old olives was removed in 2019.

Apart from the issue of how bad herbicide is for the wider environment and what it's doing to the maunga fauna, it's insane that the Authority wants to chop down nearly 2000 healthy mature trees whose shade is doing a great job of keeping weeds down and nurturing young natives to grow only to then have to spray to keep the weeds down. Sigh.

16/03/2026

Ōtāhuhu resident Shirley Waru is heading back to court in her fight to prevent Tūpuna Maunga Authority from felling hundreds of trees at Ōtāhuhu Mt Richmond.

As you may recall, Shirley's successful judicial review in 2024 resulted in the tree felling non-notified resource consent being set aside. However the Chairman - without the other TMA members' knowledge or vote - unilaterally lodged an appeal.

The appeal is being heard in Wellington in mid-April and Shirley is having to crowd-fund $45,000 to cover her legal costs. She doesn't have deep pockets and is doing this out of love for the trees and the lifeforms the support, and out of love for her local community, which has very few trees and green spaces. So please donate to her Givealittle page - every bit counts!

We are a grassroots community group fighting to stop the felling of nearly 300 exotic trees at our local Maunga.

27/01/2026

A letter to the NZ Herald from HTM's Anna Radford, in response to this morning's article "When, not if, slope failed, say experts".

The photo accompanying shows one of the 19 slips that occurred at One Tree Hill in 2023.

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Applied geography professor Martin Brook is reported to have led a team that investigated 19 slips that happened on One Tree Hill during early 2023’s deluges. The article fails to point out that most – if not all – of those slips were either on completely bare ground or started on bare areas.

Trees did not cause those slips. To the contrary, in many cases the mostly exotic trees further downhill and beside the slips arrested their progress.

Exactly the same was seen at Ōwairaka Mt Albert where a major slip occurred on steep bare ground and was halted by a group of exotic trees further down the slope.

While expert opinion is nuanced on the extent to which trees help or hinder slip prevention, nobody is suggesting that denuding steep slopes is a good idea.

Tūpuna Maunga Authority plans to remove nearly 2000 exotic trees from Auckland’s maunga. Surely the past three years’ weather events would suggest that mass felling healthy mature trees just because they are not native risks contributing to slope destabilisation and endangering local communities and neighbouring properties in the process.

23/01/2025

An excellent post by TMA member Ken Turner in response to the TMA's Chair suggesting in a Radio NZ interview that future consideration may be given to closing the maunga to prevent fires.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018971853/maunga-authority-considering-closing-volcanoes-on-holidays

05/12/2024

31/10/2024

Lately there has been a lot of highly questionable practice going on within Tūpuna Maunga Authority - even more so than the usual. Take a look at this media release issued by the Respect Mt Richmond Ōtāhuhu maunga tree protection group for more information. The article also includes questions HTM believes need answering.

There's more to come in this saga so keep an eye out for another post in the coming days.

Official information requests show concerns have been raised after Tūpuna Maunga Authority board members were kept in the dark over a failed Supreme Court appeal bid.