One Tree Hill (or Maungakiekie in Māori) is a 182 metre volcanic peak located in Auckland, New Zealand. It is an important memorial place for both Māori and other New Zealanders. The suburb around the base of the hill is also called One Tree Hill; it is surrounded by the suburbs of Royal Oak to the west, and clockwise, Epsom, Greenlane, Oranga, and Onehunga.

The hill's scoria cones erupted 20,000 - 30,000 years ago, creating lava flows that covered an area of 20 square kilometres, mostly towards Onehunga, making it the largest (in terms of area covered) of the Auckland volcanic field. The summit provides views across the Auckland area, and allows visitors to see both of Auckland's harbours.

Due to the use of the hilltop as a nightly party stop for boy racers and other (often drunk) groups of youths, it was decided in 2008 to close off the road access to the summit at night. While walking up to the hilltop will still be possible at night, it is hoped that this move will reduce vandalism. The police intend to continue monitoring the locality after hours.

Māori pā (fort)

The Māori name Maungakiekie translates to 'mountain of the kiekie vine', though other translations give the meaning as 'totara that stands alone'. The mountain and its surrounds were home to the Wai o Hua tribe, since the early 1700s and probably before that time. Other Māori tribes in the Auckland area can also trace their ancestry to the mountain.

Maungakiekie was the largest and most important Māori Pā in pre-European times. The cone and its surroundings are estimated to have been home to a population of up to 5,000. At this time, the Nga Marama chief Kiwi Tamaki held the pa and used its strategic placement to exact tribute from travellers passing from Northland to the rest of the North Island through the rich isthmus. Its position between the Waitemata Harbour to the East (opening upon the Pacific Ocean) and the Manukau Harbour to the West (opening onto the Tasman Sea) afforded a wide variety of seafood from the two harbours. The volcanic soil of the slopes of the mountain proved highly fertile and easy to defend from raiding parties from other tribes due to its steep sides and imposing palisades. The inhabitants terraced the hill extensively, and it is considered to be the largest prehistoric earthwork fortifications worldwide. It is also the largest and most complex volcanic cone / earth fortress known in the Southern Hemisphere.

Trees on the hill

When Auckland was founded as a colonial town a tree stood near the summit which gave the hill its English name. Two accounts identify it as a pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa). This tree was cut down by a white settler in 1852, in an act of vandalism in one account, or for firewood in another. It seems likely this was a different tree from the totara (Podocarpus totara) which, as a sacred tree, had given the hill one of its Maori names. A radiata pine was planted in the 1870s to replace the previous totara. John Logan Campbell repeatedly tried to grow native trees on the hill's summit, but the trees failed to survive - with only two pines, originally part of a shelter belt for the native trees, surviving for long. However, in 1960, one of the two was felled in another attack, possibly for firewood.

The remaining tree was later attacked twice with chainsaws by Māori activists to draw attention to injustices they believed the New Zealand government had inflicted upon Maori (as the tree was not a native New Zealand species, they considered it an appropriate target). The first attack happened on 28 October 1994, the anniversary of the 1835 Declaration of Independence. A second attack on 5 October 2000 left the tree unable to recover even though substantial efforts were made, and so it was removed on 26 October due to the risk of it collapsing. The chainsaw used in the first attack was later placed on sale on popular New Zealand auction site, TradeMe in 2007, but later withdrawn by the website after complaints and a poll of users. It was later listed on eBay.

Partly due to uncertainty as to what species of tree should be replanted (a new pine or a tree native to New Zealand), the summit stands empty at the moment, except for the obelisk. A new nickname, "N(one) Tree Hill", soon became popular. Plans are ongoing to plant a grove of pohutukawa and totara trees at the summit, but concerns by local iwi over Treaty of Waitangi claims have so far prevented any actual planting. The Council also had to remove repeated illegal plantings, usually of pohutukawa, over the last years.

credited to wikipedia