As with most things these days, we are all on a spectrum, and our attitude to these gentle, mute behemoths is no exception. At one end lie those who hug and imbue them with supernatural forces, at the other, the dark forces of those who sneak out in the dead of night to mutilate wayward limbs to restore previously obscured views.

We had three Norfolk Pines up north, planted along with a ragtag collection of plants left over from a neighbour’s landscape contract in my first year at architecture school. The goal was to stabilise a slip-prone hillside. I would like to say that I planted them but, the fact is, the week of their planned bedding coincided with a period of outstanding surf in the bay below the slope and I’m embarrassed to say that my friends and fellow students, Mal Bartleet and Chris Fox, did the hard graft while I rode the wild surf.

By happy coincidence, I later bought part of that hillside with a couple of friends and we built what I now call the ‘northern office’; a little plywood box perched over the bay that is increasingly obscured as the fruits of Mal and Chris’ labours grow. Not unexpectedly, the Norfolks grew well in that northern climate and towered over our little house. Well, they did but, now, only one remains. We watched as the other two’s deep-green foliage faded and turned brown, their tall decaying trunks a liability in the increasingly common tempests that accompany the tail end of tropical cyclones swinging down from the tropical waters to the north.

We thought it was, perhaps, a disease that struck only two of the three trees, but closer inspection revealed small drill holes at the base of each trunk and our fears that someone who shared our slippery hillside had killed the trees in order to gain a better view of the beach below were realised. Recently, that one surviving tree has had branches cut to extend the view of the beach further; from this, it’s not too difficult to figure out from which house the phantom pruner has come. In the interests of a quiet life, we have said nothing; though, as I huff and puff my way back up the hill, my thoughts are consumed with revenge.

This is not an unusual story. The popular press seems to feature stories of this ilk at regular intervals: neighbours cutting branches leaning over fences and similar attacks on much-loved trees on public land. While I generally applaud direct action, killing others’ trees seems a crude assertion of assumed rights on the part of the assailant, all the more so given the decades of steadfast growth that are lost in the roar of a chainsaw or the surreptitious actions of the clandestine poisoner.

The loss of the odd private tree is, though, nothing compared with the more complex politics surrounding the replacement of well-established ‘colonial weeds’, such as those crowning Auckland’s volcanic cones, with native species that will take many decades to make a similar contribution to the environment as those they have replaced. The felling of several hundred mature trees in one hit is a dramatic commitment to the long-term decolonisation of the city’s cones and, while one might acknowledge the long-term importance of the action, it is still a significant loss of urban tree cover.

I have spent a bit of time thinking about these big, green and wobbly shaped things lately. This is not with any degree of scientific inquiry but I have gazed, lantern jawed, through the foliage trying, as part of my somewhat desultory summer holiday self-improvement programme, to figure out how to better represent them with pen and brush. I am embarrassed to say that I have only a fledgling knowledge of biology and am a bit late in coming to the realisation that these vast assemblages of structure and chemical process swaying about in the wind are the most extraordinarily wonderful, complex things, and that we should have more of them.

“The case for increasing the tree cover in our cities is irrefutable, be it carbon sequestration, oxygen exhalation, urban cooling or the psychological health and well-being of citizens. Alas, our cities fare poorly in comparison with other cities in percentages of tree cover.”

The case for increasing the tree cover in our cities is irrefutable, be it carbon sequestration, oxygen exhalation, urban cooling or the psychological health and well-being of citizens. Alas, our cities fare poorly in comparison with other cities in percentages of tree cover. We need look no further than Singapore to see the impact of an aggressive campaign to establish tree cover wherever it is possible: on private property, in the public realm, within buildings, and clinging onto the roofs and façades of city buildings.

One might say that such a dense metropolis sitting on the equator has a greater need of lower air temperatures offered by urban planting. Lest we feel complacent, comfortable in our subtropical latitudes, we should remember that the tropics are inexorably coming our way. We might also point to Singapore as an example of the efficiency of a small, densely populated city state with a dominant political regime, implementing comprehensive change where the science and goals of such change are clear.

LiDAR analysis of existing coverage, points to significant asymmetry of cover between suburbs: those with higher coverage generally correlated with economic well-being. That same analysis also highlights the loss of larger trees: those that make greater contributions to the environment, thanks to their greater leaf area, than do smaller, more recently established trees.

The removal of the RMA’s blanket protection of trees has led to the felling of many larger trees to facilitate land development. We architects engaged in the development of land and the intensification of the urban environment have a key role to play in the protection of existing trees. The configuration of land use and early site planning gives us a special opportunity to affect tree coverage by ensuring that existing trees do not need to be felled to facilitate land development and ensuring adequate space is provided for reasonably sized trees in projects.

It may be a pious hope that our clients will share our commitment to the growth of the urban forest and we should augment our proselytising within projects with lobbying our city halls for mechanisms that acknowledge trees on private land benefit the wider community while costs lie only with the landowner. For those keen to pick up the cudgels of political lobbying, Associate Professor Justin Morgenroth of the University of Canterbury’s School of Forestry outlines some of the strategies for sharing the costs between council and landowners in an interesting RNZ Detail programme.

The protection of existing trees and the provision of space for new ones on private property will make good contributions to increasing tree coverage but they will be slow, incremental gains. The public sector offers the possibility of much more significant gains, but one suspects a few heads might need to be banged together in our city hall, at least, if significant change is to be effected. You will have your own view about the desirability of recreating a Singapore of the south but, under our current planning and legislative controls, we may need the single-minded focus of my northern neighbour if we are to have verdant cities offering shade and delight, soaking up carbon and breathing out oxygen.