Coastal privilege
Call for better management of our coastline
New Zealanders need a better relationship with the sea, and that could mean moving back and giving nature more room, coastal scientist Jim Dahm says.
He is a founding member of the Coastal Restoration Trust, which is holding its annual conference in Whanganui this week.
Coasts needed to be managed better, he said, with less time spent fighting the sea.
“If we want to improve the management of the coast, we need to make a better effort to inform and involve the community.
“At the moment too much is being done by professionals and councils.
“The consequence of that is that changes we are trying to get are occurring too slowly.
“Council staff are often quite reticent to make changes that the community don’t understand, so really we need to explain what’s going on to communities much more, and move away from technocratic to a more democratic approach to planning.”
If developers gave the coast more room, less effort would be needed to fight the sea, he said.
“To recover a lot of our lost ecosystems we have got to move back and give nature more space.”
Sea level rise was at crisis point for Hawke’s Bay towns such as Haumoana. Whanganui people were lucky their coastline was building up rather than being cut into.
“You are in a very privileged situation, one of the few parts of New Zealand where the coast is still aggrading,” Dahm said.
The sand that flows south down this coast would mitigate the effect of sea level rise, he said.
But it would not stop cliffs eroding under more frequent wave attacks.
“Certainly we are expecting quite significant increase in erosion of soft cliffs, and cliffs in general.”
Vehicles had been a point of contention on Whanganui beaches, and Dahm said they did not belong in dunes.
“It’s a sure way to create blowouts and wind erosion problems, and that gets very serious very quickly.”
Vehicles going to beaches needed a well-defined accessway that they kept to, he said.
Vehicles driving on hard sand were another matter.
Driving beaches was a longestablished habit that was highly valued, Dahm said, but it could affect shellfish and nesting birds.
He expected beach driving to get less common, as people learned more about coastal ecosystems.
“Most people are fairly wellintentioned. “If they’re well informed and you work collaboratively with them then you generally get a very, very high level of co-operation.”
There are 110 people at the Coastal Restoration Trust conference
titled Living on a Dynamic Coast Ko Te Kawa o Tangaroa, which finishes today.
It is based at the Grand Hotel, with field trips to Turakina Beach, Waverley and Waipipi.
On Wednesday, Whanganui ecologist Colin Ogle spoke on coastal vegetation.
He was then presented with the trust’s Pingao & Toheroa Award for an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to coastal restoration.
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Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre could become a drop-off hub for a range of hazardous products.
Whanganui District Council waste adviser Stuart Hylton said the centre already collected e-waste items, such as domestic batteries, eco-bulbs and fluorescent tubes, and he envisaged that would expand to include other items in the Government’s “priority products” list.
Last year the Government announced six priority products for regulated product stewardship under the Waste Minimisation Act, as part of a wider plan to reduce the amount of rubbish ending up in landfills or polluting the environment.
Other categories include refrigerants and other synthetic greenhouse gases, agrichemicals and their containers, farm plastics and packaging (beverage packaging, single-use plastic packaging).
Hylton said the centre would be ready to collect items from other categories once the scheme was fully rolled out.
“We want to encourage people to bring energy efficient light bulbs and fluorescent tubes to the centre, as well as all domestic batteries — both alkaline and rechargeable — and car batteries,” Hylton said.
At present the centre sends energy efficient light bulbs and fluorescent tubes, which contain mercury, to
waste specialists in Auckland to be fully recycled, with zero waste going to landfill.
All domestic batteries should be dropped at the resource recovery centre to be disposed of safely, Hylton said.
“We
recommend
purchasing
rechargeable batteries because, as well as being reusable, they can also be sent off to be fully recycled at the end of their life.
“Even though standard alkaline batteries can’t be recycled, it’s important to bring them into the centre because they need to be encased in cement before being sent to landfill to prevent leaching into the environment.”
Hylton said many people did not know that products such as children’s car seats, old toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes could also be taken to the centre.
Children’s car seats can be recycled through the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre.
“Whanganui District Council subsidises the recycling of children’s car seats, so it’s just $5 to drop off a car seat, instead of the $25 that is paid in some regions.”
Car seats are processed by SeatSmart, which supports social enterprise organisations to dismantle some of the seats. Most of the metal and plastic is recycled and the straps are used to make bags.
● For information on recycling and reusing in Whanganui, go to www. resourcewhanganui.org.nz