News & Events

A winter of planting, weeding and now measuring has seen the Coastal Restoration Trust collaborative backdune biodiversity project firmly establish in its second year.

Thanks to the generous support of Councils, the Department of Conservation, the Ministry for the Environment and hundreds of volunteers with spades and clip-boards throughout the country, thousands of backdune plants have gone into the ground in the past two months - many of which are in demonstration plots or monitoring sites.

Seedlings were measured in each monitoring site and will be recorded again in 12 months to assess growth rates and survival by species and site. Each site is different depending on factors such as location, local climatic conditions, and existing species present so the results we obtain will really help at a local level.

Read the latest newsletter or find out more about the project.

Alison Balance talks with Chatham Islanders about the restoration of their dunes. Get the podcast or listen to the interview online here. 

Alison Balance from Radio New Zealand’s Our Changing World talks to locals about their award winning restoration project at Maketu Spit.  Download the podcast or listen to the interview online.  

Alison Balance from Radio New Zealand heads to Lyall Bay to talk dunes, the Loder Cup and the future of our treasured coastal margins with Mark Dean (2012 Loder Cup recipient) and Harley Spence (Coastal Restoration Trust Trustee).  Download the podcast or listen to the interview online here.

Ecologists and Environment Waikato staff have confirmed presence of sea spurge, Euphorbia paralias, on a West Waikato beach. This weed is a serious threat to indigenous sand dune vegetation and unvegetated fauna habitat, such as the nesting site for NZ Dotterels.

Two small infestations were found including around 65 flowering plants and over 100 seedlings. Sea spurge is native to western and southern Europe, but is widely naturalised in the coastal districts of southern Australia, and has also recently naturalised on Lord Howe Island. It is a long lived perennial plant 20-70 cm tall that dies back after flowering. The seeds are buoyant and can travel over long distances on ocean currents. The plant must be eradicated. If you see sea spurge, contact your Plant Pest Officer.