Burning Of A Pohutukawa

Northern Advocate, 6 January 1948, Page 4

Burning Of A Pohutukawa

It is hard to believe that any sensible person, young or old, would deliberately set fire to a pohutukawa tree which, with its crimson Christmas clothing, adorned Smugglers’ Bay, the rendezvous of thousands of Northland visitors in past years. However, it is reported that a vandal did set fire to the tree, which, despite the efforts of men with sense of responsibility as custodians of community property to extinguish the fire, has probably been killed.

Though vandals fortunately form a small section of any community, they are nevertheless as menacing as they are contemptible, and decent people who witness their vandalism should have no compunction about taking steps to have them punished. This is particularly desirable so far as , the preservation of trees on a harbour or ocean coast is concerned, for. as charred stumps bear mute

witness, many beautiful pohutukawas in the vicinity of Whangaroi Harbour and in bays along the coast have fallen victims to fires started by picnickers wishing to "boil the billy.”

In the majority of eases thoughtlessness has been the cause of the destruction of trees, for moral perversion alone could move an individual deliberately to destroy a pohutukawa or any other tree which, adorned by nature, in turn adorns the locality in which it stands. Apart altogether from the aesthetic aspect of tree mutilation or destruction, the national damage which can be done by careless handling of matches, cigarette butts and picnic fires during the end-of-yem holiday period, when grass and urderscrub arc dry as tinder, demands that the utmost care should be taken by everybody to minimise the danger of fire.