Nearly 10 years after Auckland's One Tree Hill lost its lone pine in a land protest, a $180.5 million deal will result in a small forest being planted on the peak.
The deal will end a decade of a Treaty of Waitangi dispute over the ownership of Auckland city involving Ngati Whatua o Orakei and six smaller competing groups.
The deal may also include a commitment to formally drop the name One Tree Hill and to use Maungakiekie or the "mountain of the kiekie shrub".
Mt Eden – named after Lord Auckland's family – will become Maungawhau.
Auckland Mayor John Banks said the council was ready to start planting. "We have got trees that we are nurturing off-site that are becoming a very good size that we would plant there. It is likely it will be more than one tree because the lone pine tree on Maungakiekie is very recent," he said.
Negotiations were in a decade-long impasse until earlier this year when Treaty Negotiations Minister Christopher Finlayson put retired predecessor Sir Douglas Graham into talks between Ngati Whatua and six other iwi and hapu with overlapping claims.
When the Cabinet appointed Sir Douglas, the Crown offer for a $180.5 million deal was announced, made up of three Ngati Whatua groups sharing $44.5 million, five Tainui hapu $45 million, two groups from Hauraki $75 million and other smaller iwi $16 million.
Ngati Whatua elder Grant Hawke said there were still some issues to be settled.
"There is a lot of good commitment from the minister and his office to formulate a way through this and we are hoping by Christmas we will all be able to have some sort of agreement."
Mr Finlayson confirmed "an agreement would be reached before the end of the year".
Mr Banks said there was a "clear understanding" between Ngati Whatua elder the late Sir Hugh Kawharu and the council that no planting would take place until the issue was settled.
Anything else would cause "unnecessary anger by a small per centage of the militancy".
"We've got a number of trees and we will do that in consultation with Ngati Whatua and having said that, the environment up there is particularly hostile to young trees."
Mr Hawke was adamant trees would be planted with a new deed.
Office of Treaty Settlements figures show the new deal means cash settlements to the 642,800 Maori or Maori descendants of New Zealand will reach $1.14 billion.
ABOREAL ATTACKS
In the mid-19th century a white settler cut down a pohutukawa on Maungakiekie.
A replacement pine tree was first attacked with a chainsaw in 1994 by Maori protester Mike Smith.
It survived but a second attack in 2000 led to its removal on safety grounds.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3004751/One-Tree-Hill-to-branch-out
