Gregor Ronald - do you know what company your friend works for? Greening the Red Zone's ecologist Glenn Stewart also consults CERA about native trees that should be saved (many of them in patches of bush we manage) and frequently the wrong ones are felled for no reason at all. All these guys should be talking to each other and working together!

Consultation is meant to begin later this year - when is anyone's guess. We're not overly keen on grass: Chch has heaps of it already, it's expensive to maintain (all that watering in a dry climate) and Canada geese love it. Much cheaper and more environmentally beneficial to restore some of the totara and kahikatea forests (yes!) and other wetlands that were here before :)

We think every non-invasive tree that remains should stay. But when it dies naturally, it should be replaced by a native. It's a huge area, and there's no way it could all be returned to a pristine natural state in a short time. It'll take decades. So no need to remove anything that isn't in danger of spreading profusely (like plums, sycamores, elms, or even silver birches which are a problem for a whole other reason).There are also some proposed projects on the outskirts of the red zone for community gardens or patches of retained heritage exotic garden (that one around the Banks Ave area you are obviously familiar with) that while we don't promote, we don't have a problem with. We do, however, have a huge problem with the proposed rowing lake which just seems like over-engineered madness on geologically unsuitable land.

Quite a few of us have plans :) The plan of the group I chair, Greening the Red Zone, it to return as much of the red zone as possible to its natural, native state and restore a bit of the balance in Christchurch's environment. We want native bush birds such as tui, kereru, fantails, grey warblers, morepork, kaka etc to be as common in Christchurch as our water birds and our exotic birds are. We want people to be able to walk, run, ride, kayak, canoe, maybe ride a horse, through a natural environment, from city to sea, all within the boundaries of a modern city. We want to see events such as the Christchurch Marathon and the Coast to Coast run (or bike) their final stages through a stunning native forest and wetland. We want in 100 years time, for residents of Christchurch to look back and remark on the foresight of those who saved this place for nature. If anyone wants to back that vision, you can follow us on Twitter @GtRZ_Chch or like us on Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/AvonRiverPark. (You'll see even more photos on Facebook :) )