Zoroastrian Community Trust of New Zealand—4 August 2013

Zoroastrianism is one of the world’s oldest religions and there is a thriving community of Zoroastrians in New Zealand.  The Zoroastrian Community Trust of New Zealand ZCT was established in 2007 with the aim of building a social and religious centre for the community in Auckland.

As a fund raising event, the ZCT Trustees organised a memorial tree planting at CUE Haven. The Trustees invited supporters and their friends to purchase and plant trees in memory of departed loved ones.

For the memorial plantings, CUE Haven donated kahikatea trees to ZCT.  The kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydiodes)  is New Zealand’s tallest native tree, growing to 60 to 80 metres.  Kahikateas live for hundreds of years, making them excellent memorial trees.

Today 45 supporters and friends visited CUE Haven and planted 42 memorial trees in the main wetland area.

As people arrived, they spent time socialising over morning tea.

Mahrukh then gave a welcome and an overview of the CUE Haven project.

The group then hiked up to the planting site where Tom gave a brief planting demonstration and safety briefing.

The trees were blessed with a short communal prayer and then everyone selected a tree and ventured out into the wetlands.

It was a perfect winter’s day and fortunately, we hadn’t had much rain in the past few days so the wetlands were not overly swampy.

People were welcome to plant their trees in any spot they liked and the group quickly spread out exploring the area.

It didn’t take long to plant the trees and when everyone was finished we had a relaxing picnic lunch.

After lunch, some people went for a short tour of the property and some explored the walking tracks.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and a wonderful fund raising event.

We’d like to thank the ZCT Trustees Rohinton Patrawala, Shahazad Contractor, Tanaz Siganporia, Tehmus Mistry and Vicky Mistry for all their hard work in organising the planting day and for all their efforts today to make it a successful and fun experience for everyone involved.

And we also want to thank everyone who contributed to ZCT’s fund raising efforts and came along to plant the memorial trees. Your efforts today are a great contribution to the CUE Haven restoration project and the planet.

We look forward to having you all return to CUE Haven for a leisurely visit to explore the grounds and to see how the trees have grown.