{"id":500242,"date":"2026-06-28T23:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T23:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/500242\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T23:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T23:36:17","slug":"nz-cities-cant-see-the-forest-or-the-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/500242\/","title":{"rendered":"NZ cities can’t see the forest or the trees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our cities are losing their greenery, even as research continues to find that mature trees are crucial to cooling urban spaces, reducing air pollution, improving city-dwellers\u2019 physical, mental and cultural health \u2013 and even potentially reducing crime rates.<\/p>\n

Thirty percent of Auckland\u2019s green space vanished between 1980 and 2016, along with at least 12,879 trees, while Hamilton lost 20 percent of its green area over the same timeframe. Christchurch lost about 15 percent of its urban canopy between 2016 and 2021.<\/p>\n

Each of these cities also has a plan to increase the numbers of urban trees. Christchurch and Hamilton are aiming for 40 percent canopy cover (currently 23 percent and 15 percent respectively). Auckland\u2019s urban forest strategy is targeting 30 percent canopy \u2013 it\u2019s currently 18 percent and unevenly distributed around the city\u2019s suburbs. Research by data journalist Kate Newton found that in Auckland, the leafy suburbs are aptly named. The city\u2019s less privileged suburbs have far fewer trees.<\/p>\n

Mangere, a suburb where PhD candidate in sociology Justine Skilling lives, sits well to become the Auckland average for leafiness with only 8 percent tree cover. Her research examined what it would take to re-green Mangere. She found that it took far more than digging holes and planting trees. Redressing the balance, found Skilling, takes the whole community.<\/p>\n

Skilling was previously involved in a project that produced the Ngaa Hau o Maangere Ngahere Planting Guide<\/a> \u2013 a booklet to help communities decide what, where and how to plant native species in their neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

The planting guide was a collaborative endeavour that involved mana whenua hap\u016b Te Ahiwaru and Te Aakitai Waiohua, M\u0101ori ecological specialists Uru Whakaaro, community organisation ME Family Services, K\u0101inga Ora, and an array of other council and community partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really practical tool,\u201d says Skilling. \u201cAnyone should be able to pick it up and figure out what to plant in their backyard, or in their school, or marae, or church, or, you know, wherever there is land that could be planted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finding spaces for trees isn\u2019t straightforward, as Skilling discovered. Berms contain underground services; a park she investigated holds a sewer line.<\/p>\n

M\u0101ngere also features heritage sites, such as shell middens \u2013 historic rubbish heaps that can contain important information about previous M\u0101ori occupation. \u201cSo, if you start digging and you find a whole lot of shells, then you\u2019re going to have to call in an archaeologist to have a look,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it\u2019s important to be aware of how an area was originally used \u2013 as the planting guide details. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to understand the history of the land: Was it a landfill site? What\u2019s underneath the ground? And what kind of soil do you have? Who has kaitiaki responsibilities there?\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there are safety issues. In Auckland parks, for instance, council regulations forbid plants and shrubs that grow above waist height in accordance with a set of urban design principles called CPTED, or Crime Prevention through Environmental Design. Keeping sight lines through parks makes them feel safer to a wider variety of people, so that park space is used more.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a whole lot of considerations,\u201d says Skilling, \u201cwhen you\u2019re planting anywhere\u201d.<\/p>\n

Why eco-sourcing plants is important<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just a matter of finding where to put a tree \u2013 you also have to find the right tree.<\/p>\n

Research undertaken to produce the planting guide found that the M\u0101ngere area used to have widespread p\u016briri forest \u2013 but that doesn\u2019t mean the community can plant a bunch of p\u016briri seedlings and call it a day. Ideally those trees need to come from nearby \u2013 a practice known as eco-sourcing.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because \u201cevery area has its own genetic biodiversity happening\u201d, says Skilling, \u201cand if you take a tree from a different ecosystem, first of all, it might not survive very well because it hasn\u2019t developed to grow in this ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eco-sourcing also ensures that plant diseases aren\u2019t transferred to new areas and helps to preserve the unique genetic identity of plants in a particular area.<\/p>\n

One challenge in M\u0101ngere is that there\u2019s very few local p\u016briri to collect from. \u201cThat\u2019s really tricky in an area like this,\u201d says Skilling. \u201cWe\u2019ve got hardly any areas of remnant bush at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there are many other plants to choose from. The planting guide recommends a host of trees, shrubs, climbing species and ground covers that can be eco-sourced from the T\u0101maki Ecological District<\/a>. It\u2019s also important to scrutinise eco-sourcing claims made by nurseries, as it\u2019s not a regulated term.<\/p>\n

Planting initiatives can weave communities together<\/p>\n

Re-greening an area is a community effort, found Skilling, not only in terms of identifying spots for trees, but people or organisations willing to care for them as they grow. \u201cI think that you probably need a small team of people that can work with schools and churches and businesses and marae, whoever has land, really, to help people to put the guide into practice, and carry it forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skilling\u2019s research found that planting initiatives can build all kinds of relationships and skills: connecting community members, increasing their knowledge, giving people hands-on experience in the environment, helping them relate to the places they\u2019re living, and fostering local leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work to create the planting guide just created more effectiveness and synergy in what everyone was doing,\u201d she says. \u201cSo, we\u2019re not all just focusing on our little projects and competing with each other for funding and resources. But we\u2019re all working towards something bigger than us together. And that encouraged people to invest a bit more as well, because you can see that what you\u2019re creating is bigger than just your organisation or project.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guide incorporates m\u0101tauranga M\u0101ori \u2013 \u201cmulti-generational knowledge of the environment\u201d \u2013 alongside wishes of mana whenua hap\u016b, for the future of the area. \u201cThis actually created a real sense of belonging for everybody,\u201d says Skilling. \u201cSo even people that weren\u2019t mana whenua, or weren\u2019t M\u0101ori, just kind of knowing what mana whenua aspirations were for our area, and then thinking, \u2018Okay, I can contribute to that in some way\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The te reo M\u0101ori word for \u2018forest\u2019 is \u2018ngahere\u2019, but it goes beyond that: ngahere involves the interconnections between land, water, soil, animal life, and so on. \u201cIt\u2019s so much bigger than just tree planting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trees need communities as much as communities need trees<\/p>\n

Community-driven groups may have more stability than government agencies. Though K\u0101inga Ora was one of the partners in creating the planting guide, the 2023 change in government brought an abrupt redirection of priorities; now, K\u0101inga Ora\u2019s landscape architect no longer has the mandate or resources to carry out the scale of planting that the agency previously advocated for.<\/p>\n

Social housing policies change often, as Skilling learned in her previous career as a social worker. \u201cSome governments have discouraged people from planting anything in the garden because they don\u2019t want people to feel too attached to that piece of land. It\u2019s supposed to be seen as a temporary solution to their housing needs,\u201d she says. \u201cSo it just depends on the kind of philosophy of the government that\u2019s in power at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Skilling has support from Auckland Council\u2019s Climate Resilience Fund to work with the community to co-create an implementation plan for the guide \u2013 fostering more tree cover and stronger community relationships in parallel.<\/p>\n

The world is facing unprecedented environmental challenges. Planetary Solutions, an initiative of the Sustainability Hub at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland, and Newsroom, explores these issues \u2013 and the practical ways we can all be part of the solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Our cities are losing their greenery, even as research continues to find that mature trees are crucial to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,43,7439,139,69,84870,147,11219,22190],"class_list":["post-500242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newsroom-pro","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-planetary-solutions","tag-science","tag-sustainable-future","tag-university-of-auckland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}