Here are a few more photos. Hopefully they will help in my attempt to compare this site to the dilemma of the world today. I see it as a snapshot of the world.

When I first walked across the field on the old St Mary's site, I was gripped with a sense of loss and despair. I saw the two huge old oak trees, one needlessly chainsawed down, the other still standing, arms out with it's 80year old partner no longer there to embrace.

I could see the standing tree now looking hideously deformed as, where the partner tree had been, was now empty.

It made me think that we are at a crossroads. One road leading to more thoughtless development and the other to a sustainable and greener future.

What's you choice?

What makes these trees special is that thousands of Gisborne's citizens have sat under these trees as school children. I have been amazed at the number of people who have come up to me said that they too had sat under these trees. My parents did, I did, and my children have also. That 's one of the fabulous inter generational things about trees. These trees are truly iconic and need protecting, the question is who will protect them if the Gisborne District Council doesn't put a tree protection policy in place? Their Draft 10 Year Plan is without anything around protecting and enhancing the big trees of Gisborne.

This situation is an example of reckless development. It's a slash and burn type approach. Any developer with an ounce of social conscience would have stopped to consider how best to use these trees. If I was Mr Developer I would have called the development "The Oaks" and built a playground around these trees. A little bit of thought could have turned what was a negative (in the developers mind) into a positive.

I notice more trees are marked to come down!

Scenic road reserve 'decimated'

Scenic road reserve 'decimated'

Old St Mary's School Site

The picture on the left seems to pose a question on the position of mankind at this exact point in time.

Where to next? What's next? Who's next? What are the options?

The recent felling of this 86 year old tree in the foreground got me mad. As it was happening I was talking to the worker who informed me the tree was rotten and had to come down. I noticed one minor branch was decayed as the workman was loading carefully cut rings into his van to be turned into furniture, he later conceded.

I managed to get a hold of the developer who said it was taking up the space for one more house and that he had "bills to pay ya know".

This whole site is a pox on the Gisborne landscape and the developer needs to clean it up - quickly. Will the Gisborne District Council take any action against this developer (who is still in business I believe). Not likely!

There is no protected tree list in Gisborne and any idiot with a chainsaw can drop any tree at any time. We have seen some truly magnificant examples lowered in recent years for no reason other that leaves falling in peoples gutters. The workman metioned above asked at the time if I would like to have one of these in my backyard - he was speechless when I said I had about twenty of them.

One of my missions is to get the Gisborne District Council to reintroduce a protected tree list. They used to have one but it "fell out" of their district plan about 10 years ago, so now any tree in the Gisborne area, native or exotic is at risk. I would even settle for a simple tree protection strategy like some other Councils have e.g. You can't cut down any tree over 4 metres in Waitakere. This would provide a simple and cheap solution and end the wanton destruction currently going on.

Greener Gisborne

Web Search Results - Yellow ™ Search

How Green is New Zealand?

It's quite nice being tucked down here on the underside of the planet. Not many people even know we exist let alone where we are. In talking to a few new immigrants who have recently moved to New Zealand, I asked them the inevitable question - why move here?

The answers were generally built around how green New Zealand is. Surfing registered high on the agenda, chilled out lifestyle was another and sparse population. Troubles back in their home countries was common theme with maniacal leaders being a common factor - take note Zimbabwe and USA.

While New Zealand is fairly green, I am aware of how fragile that "greeness" is and I'm dismayed at how cavalier many citizens and organisations seem to be by taking actions that seriously jeopardise our towns, citties and country.

In my town, Gisborne, we are at risk from a number of environmental factors. The recent real estate explosion, (or is that implosion?) has left my city scarred by the effects of semi completed developments, some of these on prime sites.

The Gisborne District Council seems to be sitting on it's hands as these would be developers knock down landmark buildings and leave the raped sites and neglected and forgotten. What price progress?