2009: Mt Eden’s Cows Removed
September 16, 2022
By AHNZ
Cattle and sheep grazing on Auckland’s mountains had been a familiar sight for decades, including Mt Eden in Auckland. Instead of keeping the vegetation down at a cost to the ratepayer the cow does the job for free and can even return a profit. After Auckland’s volcanic cones started being stripped of “exotic” flora and fauna they started catching on fire in summer because of all the unmanaged dry fodder. Mt Eden lost its cows in June 2009¹.
At the time of the great bovus interruptus the manager, Peter Linton, tended to his cattle herds on six council-owned properties. The last Mt Eden cows, 24 heifers, were creating $100,000 in value by their lawn-care work alone. I didn’t mind them at all on my daily run up the summit. Just had to watch where you step. Their owner, Linton, like his father before him, would know best and he said that “the mountain’s 1.2 million annual visitors cause more damage than the cows ever did.”
The expensive gentrification of the mountain made activist group Friends of Maungawhau victorious as well as local tribesman Ngati Whatua. It also made very happy whatever crew of expensive contractors we are paying to use motorised scrub-cutters to replace the 24 cows; Or, more specifically, the corporate owner who is paid the $10k to deploy them from his desk. Like dominoes, all of Auckland’s volcanic cones were soon de-stocked. Then came the removal of car access. Then healthy trees came under attack in order to replace them with indigenous vegetation. Another tradition, fireworks, have also come under attack because without cows the dry mountain fodder is a fire hazard.
In 2019 Auckland Councillor Josephine Bartley called for a ban on fireworks: “This is totally unacceptable. We need to ban fireworks because people are irresponsible.” Witnesses of Mt Eden ablaze said smoke from the fire was blanketing nearby suburbs. Mount Eden was “absolutely covered in smoke, it’s seeping into our apartment”, said one nearby resident. This will certainly happen again in future dry summers. It makes you wonder if we should bring back Mr Linton. It makes you wonder what the $100,000 in expenditure is for (and that’s 2009 money.)
“Volcanic cones susceptible to weeds and fire with livestock removed…Slightly more dramatic is the heightened fire risk on the dormant cones….There have been a number of fires on cones throughout history..”- Volcanic cones susceptible to weeds and fire with livestock removed; Stuff (2016)
After all, what would a organization trying to do things ‘the Maori’ way know about how grazing animals effect ecology anyway? And what would they know about managing grasslands Shouldn’t ‘Te Ao Maori’ be confined to an understanding of the Stone Age and not scale-upwards to the way New Zealand works now?” – Blazes on Auckland Mountains, NZB3 (2019)
‘Sure enough, like other mountains in the TMC care (eg. Mt Wellington, eg Mangere Mountain. eg Mt Eden.) One Tree hill is now set to burn. The TMC and mainstream media will blame colonialism, specifically Guy Fawkes Day, even though New Zealand has been celebrating this for generations. It’s very usual for devastating fires to break out and make the news headlines, especially in California and Australia. What the State media do not report is that with little or no exception the land on fire is always Government land.” – You Shall Not Pass, 1901: One Tree Hill, AHNZ
“Witnesses said smoke from the fire was blanketing nearby suburbs. Mount Eden was “absolutely covered in smoke, it’s seeping into our apartment”, said one nearby resident.” – Fires on Mt Wellington, Mt Eden in Auckland after Guy Fawkes fireworks, Stuff (2019)“Grazed under the council for almost 50 years, the removal of the 24 yearling heifers is an historic move for the volcanic cone…Endorsing the permanent removal of cattle will increase annual maintenance of the mountain by an estimated $100,000.” – Mt Eden’s cows are moo-ving along, Stuff (2009)
“The decision is being seen as a victory for Friends of Maungawhau, an organisation that has campaigned for the removal of the herd for decades.” – Cows get boot from Mt Eden summit, NZ Herald (2009)
These changes, howevermuch a fire hazard and however economically insane, however alienating to the local community, are part of the current history trend we are in. The Aotearoa New Zealand era seeks to colonise our country with psudo-Maori gimmicks and jargon and will spread a long way yet before it runs its course to finally become embarrassing and old and discarded. Part of colonising Mt Eden also involves re-naming it ‘Maungawhau.’ These sorts of fads would be harmless, even healthy, in a free society. The problem arises because corporate branding and government bureaucracy super-charge the fads with marketing and propaganda money out of all proportion to their true value.
The people don’t really want this to have happened to Mt Eden but they want to be in the in-group and not be called “racist.” They want to be part of the marketplace which means being on-brand. They want to be part of the Current Thing, the present Conformity, and will go along with all manner of absurdities. “The Emperor’s New Clothes look great to me!” they say. Most people still haven’t figured out this is a hegemonic conflict even though their right to express their culture and enjoy their territory is being taken away by degrees. And, their mountain is literally catching fire and smoking out their homes but still they cannot join the dots. New Zealand is only a small country but it is subjected to a propaganda matrix worthy of a superpower.
1 The decision was published in June 2009 and Stuff reported “Mt Eden’s cattle have been permanently removed” on 2 July 2009.
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