Stuff Digital Edition

Losing trees

Since 2017 Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has committed to the ‘‘Million Trees’’ project. Planting trees, it is thought, will combat climate change. But in Christchurch, the push is to eliminate trees. Climate change doesn’t seem to get a mention.

Surveying the new grey housing estates popping up in the city’s southwest, I see next to no trees. Just row upon row of grey boxes. Blank streets. A uniformity of mediocre, cookie-cut architectural blur.

In my local area I observe the same phenomenon. Developers packing houses onto sections once home to single onestorey buildings are clear-felling every single tree and removing close to all vegetation. Every dollar and every meter counts, so goes the thinking.

Is this the bleak, uninviting Christchurch of the future? Grey houses. No trees. No birds. No life outside of human life.

Houses count. But so does keeping trees. And vegetation. For children. For the birds. And our mental health in an age where anxiety is as common as the cold once was.

Which of the mayoral candidates will have Goff’s courage to alter our direction before we lose our way altogether? And what of our current, silent mayor?

Peter E C Simmonds, Riccarton

Letters | Opinion

en-nz

2022-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/281913071500145

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