Flowers, messages and tributes to the 50 victims of the March 15 Christchurch terrorist attacks will start being removed today from the Rolleston Avenue entrance to the Botanic Gardens.
Over the past few weeks, thousands of people have laid tributes, from flowers to toys and cards, expressing their sorrow and support for all those affected by the shootings at two mosques.
"It has been heart-warming to see the contributions to the wall growing daily but we have reached a point where we need to start removing some of the older flowers and tributes," Christchurch Botanic Gardens director Wolfgang Bopp said in a statement today.
People are still welcome to place flowers along the Rolleston Avenue frontage of the Botanic Gardens but, with the agreement of the Muslim community, Christchurch City Council staff and a team of volunteers have begun the job of moving some of the older tributes.
The tributes will be taken to a sorting room across the road at the Arts Centre where a team of Canterbury University students and other volunteers will sort through the items, with the aim of making a digital record of them.
Any messages or tributes that are addressed to a specific person will be offered to the respective family. The remaining messages and tributes will be placed into long-term storage for possible use by the community at a later stage.
"These tributes now form part of our collective history and we want to handle them all with care and respect. They are an expression of our shared sadness at the loss of 50 members of our community but also a tribute to all the support across the country and the world.
"It is important that we deal with them sensitively," Mr Bopp said.
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