Council support for removal of mangroves triggers ‘shock’

An environmental group says it is “shocked” to see the Auckland Council promoting the work of a community group that has cleared 25ha of mangroves from an estuary as “positive”.

But the council says the work is being done in stages to minimise environmental impacts, and with “rigorous” consent conditions.

The Waiuku Estuary Restoration Trust, known as “The Mudlarks”, has spent the past decade clearing plants in the sediment-choked South Auckland estuary.

A council media release, part of a series highlighting examples of “the council and the community coming together to drive positive local change”, said the group began “illegally” removing the mangroves in 2005.

The Mudlarks then gained a resource consent to remove 9ha in 2010, and another in 2014 to remove 75ha over 30 years.

Forest & Bird environmental lawyer Sally Gepp said she was “shocked” to see the council celebrating the Mudlarks’ work.

She said the expansion of mangroves in some areas, such as Waiuku, was due to sediment running to the sea and unhealthy rivers.

“It is understandable communities are annoyed there is more mud than there used to be, but removing the mangroves will not resolve the sediment issue, it will only wreck native habitats and destroy the natural flood and storm protection mangroves provide,” Gepp said.

The council release said it gave the group about $10,000 a year for its work.

Auckland deputy mayor Bill Cashmore, who has been involved with the group over the past five years, said the area had been free of mangroves until the late 1970s, and once had plenty of white, sandy beaches.

Previously “uncontrolled development” in the area, before the Resource Management Act kicked in, had seen top soils washing off the land and into the sandy estuary, allowing the mangroves to flourish.

“It used to be awful. But what we have seen since the Mudlarks began their volunteer work is it slowly returning to how it was. The wildlife is improving, areas are being replanted and pathways are going in, all with volunteer labour. It is something to be celebrated.”