Letter: Plaque instead of shade?

The destruction of the still-living Utu tree in the Arorangi CICC grounds was not widely debated in the community.

Former Member of Parliament Sel Napa summed it up eloquently by asking who in 200 years had been harmed by the tree. And the persons responsible now tell us that they “might” erect a plaque to remember the tree by. Perhaps the plaque will be so big that it gives the shade that the tree once gave to the generations of worshipers and their children.

The tree was still alive. How many thousands of seeds had fallen to the ground over centuries, any one of which could have been nurtured and protected to take its parents place? The old tree could have been trimmed for safety and left for more generations to come, to die naturally, nourishing its child. And so on for more hundreds of years.

All is not lost, for the persons who needlessly destroyed this heritage can plant an Utu sapling, protect it from being killed in its youth by a weed whacker, and it can still be nourished by the buried roots of the wantonly destroyed ancestor.

(Name and address supplied)