News

The Ministry for the Environment Green Ribbon Awards recognise the outstanding contributions of individuals, organisations, businesses and communities to protecting and enhancing New Zealand’s environment.

The Coastal Restoration Trust won the ‘Protecting our oceans and coasts’ category which recognises those who have demonstrated innovation and initiative in protecting, restoring or enhancing marine or coastal ecosystems.

Greg Bennett Trust Chair said “we share this award with all the hundreds of hard working, dedicated individuals and organisations we have worked alongside for over a decade, it is as much their journey as ours…..thank you.” Greg also acknowledged the generosity and financial support of the Trust’s Research Partners and principal sponsor Quinovic Property Management.

The Trust was congratulated for taking a collaborative approach, and providing robust, science-based, practical and cost effective guidelines for large scale restoration and sustainable management of NZ’s sand dunes.

The winners of the 2014 Green Ribbon Awards were announced by the Minister for the Environment, Hon Amy Adams, on 16 June 2014.

The Trust will be sending the award around the country to celebrate locally with it’s many partners and collaborators.

This is the first year the Trust has entered the awards and we have been succesful in being a finalist in the ‘Protecting our coasts and oceans’ category. Four Trustees will attend the awards dinner on 16th June when the recipients will be announced.

The Trust would like to thank the hundreds of individuals and organisations that we have worked alongside for over 10 years to help find ways to restore naturally functioning dune and beach environments.

Read the Ministers announcment here.

The native sand binding plant Spinifex, or Kowhangatara, has been locally extinct from areas in Canterbury for over 100 years – until now. This year two Canterbury community groups have made huge steps towards restoring this once abundant species to their local beaches.

Sumner Environment Group in Christchurch City have been replanting areas of the Sumner beach foredune in an effort to increase biodiversity values and reduce wind-blown sand. Monitoring results in May show that Spinifex plants planted in previous years are producing viable seed and seedlings are now appearing on the dunes. This is a huge success for an area that has, in the past, been completely void of any native sand dune species. Read about their success story

Sumner Environment Group -2013 Coastal Restoration Trust Award

Sumner Environment Group received the 2013 Coastal Restoration Trust Best Coastal Community Group Award

Further north at Te Kohaka o Tuhaitara Coastal Park, 2000 Spinifex plants have been planted by dedicated local community and Council groups. This planting is part of a 575 stretch of North Canterbury coastline being managed with a long term vision to progressively restore the sand dunes, backdunes, forested areas and inland waterways to self sustaining ecosystems of predominantly indigenous species. The area includes the Tūtaepatu Lagoon which is the largest area of natural open water in the coastal strip between the Waimakariri and Ashley Rakahuri Rivers. The entire area is highly valuable to local iwi and these values are fundamental to the holistic approach being taken for the restoration work. Read more about Te Kohaka o Tuhaitara

The Restoration goal for Tutaepatu Lagoon is “a lagoon with largely indigenous vegetation that supports mahinga kai and spiritual values”.

These two Canterbury projects were the recipients of the 2013 Coastal Restoration Trust Awards presented at the annual conference in Nelson.

Thames-based coastal scientist Jim Dahm, a trustee on the NZ Coastal Restoration Trust with 20 years involvement in dune restoration by planting native species, has recently visited Gisborne as part of the Coastal Restoration Trust Coastal Backdunes project. “It’s great to see what Wainui Coast Care is doing. They are a good bunch of people with a great plan — just the sort of nucleus we need in the way beaches are managed,” he said.

The visit included a meeting at the Wainui Surf Club where Jim talked about reasons for the increased focus on working with nature as opposed to hard engineering in coastal areas. He talked about the form and function of our coastlines and dune systems as buffers to the sea as well as the basic guidelines for dune restoration and working with nature. He presented a range of case studies of work around New Zealand where the aims have been to restore biodiversity, enhance protection and manage coastal hazards. Some of these examples included urban areas where combined approaches using both nature and some engineering works were required.

Jennie Harre-Hindmarsh, who organised the visit, said that it was “very successful”. Click on the links below to read the media articles about this event.

1. Caring for our Coast – public forum article, Sat13 July 2013

http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/article/?id=33193

2. Working with Nature (Wainui Beach Coast Care article and photo, Sat 20 July 2013)

http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/article/Default.aspx?id=33276

Contact the Coastal Restoration Trust if you would like to be involved in one of our projects or organise a similar event to this one.

Children are our future ‘coastal carers’ and more and more schools are getting involved in local coastal restoration work as a way of learning about this dynamic environment.

At Rarawa Beach, in the Far North, local tamariki are an essential part of passing on knowledge about looking after our coasts. Recently tamariki from Ngataki school worked at the Rarawa Beach backdune research site as part of their Matariki and Arbor Day celebrations.

Ngataki School tamariki planted trees in the backdune site and made (and flew) traditional manu aute - Maori kites along the beach.

The Rarwa Beach site is one of more than 50 around New Zealand being assessed as part of the Coastal Restoration Trust three year backdune restoration project. The project aims to investigate the most effective ways of restoring our backdune environments and is supported by the Minsitry for the Environment, Department of Conservation and Councils throughout the country. For further information on the project click here.