News

CoastCare Northland has had another busy planting season with 9800 spinifex, 4500 pingao, and 1150 back-dune plants provided to groups for planting at sites around Northland’s coast. Groups have also been busy with weed and pest control and putting up fences and signs to protect the dunes.

Dune restoration at Long Beach began in 2011 with a group of local residents keen to protect the few remaining patches of spinifex on the beach, and expand them by planting. Planting was initially mainly on the lower part of the dune below the kikuyu, but this made the planting vulnerable to storms and also made the control of the kikuyu a big on-going job. Dune restoration at Russell took a big step forward this winter with local residents agreeing to have the kikuyu mechanically removed and replaced with native sand-binders to establish a wider dune that will provide a buffer and allow for dune recovery after storm erosion. Response has been extremely positive and it is planned to continue the work along the beach.

Mangawhai Heads is another popular Northland beach and many feet trampling a relatively small area has had an impact on the sand dunes there. Despite previous work by the Kaipara District Council to help restore the dune area, weeds have taken over parts of the dunes, and damaged fences and walk-ways have led to plants being crushed and caused large dune blow-outs. A collaborative project has been set up with both councils and the local community. Weed control was undertaken and then a planting day was held with around 25 people planting 1300 plants in the “stage one” area in just over an hour. Stage two of weed control and planting is planned for next year.

 For more detail on these stories and information on other CoastCare Northland activities, email CoastCare@nrc.govt.nz for a copy of the latest CoastCare News or visit www.nrc.govt.nz/CoastCare

The project is now in its final stages, with all the main methodologies sorted out and the data manipulation now complete. While the project has not exactly gone to plan. this has been a fantastic learning experience where I have had to learn all sorts of techniques around remote sensing and image analysis, as well as furthering my understanding of coastal ecosystems.

As far as what I expect the key results of the project will be, this project is likely to show just as much about the importance of setting up the image acquisition and preparation correctly as it is going to about how we can use the images from remote sensing to analyse dune environments. For instance, dune environments can be highly dynamic, both physically and with seasonal fluctuations in vegetation activity and cover. This means that for these types of studies, collecting both the remote sensing and field data at similar times will be important to ensure high accuracy in image classification and any further analysis and modelling with the data.

I believe that drone based aerial surveys of dune environments are very well suited to small scale monitoring projects, as I have found that a strong understanding of your study environment is important for image interpretation at such fine spatial scales.

Photos:

“Plots” shows the plant community study polygons overlayed with the GPS points taken in feild. The relatively high spatial error of the gps unit used (50cm post-processing, compared to the pixels which are 10 cm by 10 cm) meant that the exact locations of plots were not able to be located.

“Water” is one of many seasonal water bodies that occurs at Ocean Beach. Ground water can significantly affect spectral data, resulting in higher amounts of error unless properly accounted for.

Some names of beaches, islands and other features around Waitemata Harbour have been officially changed following Te Kawerau ā Maki Treaty of Waitangi Settlement 2015.

Check here for the detail.

The Coastal Restoration Trust has recently signed up with Kiwi Karma, an accommodation booking agency that donates a percentage of what you pay to the charity of your choice. To support us, simply book your next accommodation through them, choose the Coastal Restoration Trust as the charity, and we will get either 5% or 8% depending on which hotel/motel you book.

Go here to read more and make your booking.

They currently have a “Who deserves your act of kindness?” action, for which you can nominate someone(s). Go here to take part.

By Paul Pope

Coastal erosion has been a hot topic in Dunedin over recent months with the ongoing damage to the St Clair sea wall and the erosion of the dune areas at St Kilda at Ocean Beach Domain. Yet these issues are not new and have been ongoing for over 100 years, often with resulting action to stem the rising tide of public opinion and the loss of our dune system. Recently, more people have attributed the decline of Ocean Beach to the effects of climate change, but in light of historical research over management and land use that appears premature. Don’t burn me at the stake and accuse me of the heresy of climate change denial just yet, please! People need to understand that the weakening of Otago’s dunes and dunes nationally are a product of historic land use, poor development choices, widespread removal of indigenous vegetation and attempts to tame untameable natural processes.

The following articles should give you a starting point on the issues facing Ocean Beach Domain in Dunedin. I’ve become alarmed that the general public of the city are woefully ignorant of the nature and importance of the coastline and have created a page on Facebook called “The Beginners Guide to Coastal Conservation.” It’s a mixture of the historical and scientific and so far has been working well.

Here are two links from articles I’ve written for New Zealand’s oldest conservation organisation, the Dunedin Amenities Society, founded in 1888. It’s a rather bitter irony for me that as an advocate for native plant dune restoration I should be writing for the organisation that first brought marram grass to Dunedin in 1890! However, times change and so does the environmental consciousness about habitat restoration and I’m pleased to have been part of that change in the last 25 years.

The first article “Armed for the Fray” is the true story of how the Mayor and Councillors of St Kilda took on the government in 1880 to stop the mining of sand at Ocean Beach. It was originally researched by the late John Perry and presented at the Dunedin CDVN conference in 2002 at my request. When John passed away his widow Virginia asked me to sort his papers and this was amongst his things. With her permission I added to the research and edited parts of what is a ripping good yarn. What is telling about the story is whether there are still politicians in our community today who would so passionately take up the cause to protect their community and its dunes.

“St Clair Esplanade – When History Repeats” is a cautionary tale of 140 years of mismanagement of the coastline, where people have tried and ultimately failed in understanding the processes they are trying to control. It’s a lesson in failure and continues to be one as the southern coast pounds the wall in and its environs into submission. After the reconstruction of the wall in the early 21^st century 15 years later we are watching its demise.