Mangawhai Harbour flows with life force

 

BY JULIA WADE

Fast forward nearly 30 years from the days of the Big Dig and Mangawhai’s harbour flows beautifully, attracting people and wildlife alike to play in her clear waters and rest on her sandy shores. 

Work behind the scenes to maintain the current pristine condition is constant and mainly due to a devoted band of volunteers and members of the Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society (MHRS), an energetic committee who passionately believe in the health of the harbour and are ‘keeping the Spirit of Mangawhai very much alive’ says MHRS president Doug Lloyd. 
“The estuary is now in extremely good health, the best it has been in for three or four decades,” he says. “This is the cumulative result of hours and hours of volunteer work that has been invested since the Big Dig.”

Although MHRS’s original long-term sustainable plan for the harbour has been reviewed and updated from when the group first formed, their focus remains on sand dredging to keep the water flow high to flush the bar, planting and rabbit control on the spit, protection of bird feeding grounds and habitats, management of mangroves, and opposing off-shore sand mining which removes sand from the Spit. 

Compliance and costs
Lloyd says in current times the MHRS has extra challenges, having to work and comply with all the requirements of Kaipara District Council (KDC), Northland Regional Council (NRC) and Department of Conservation (DOC).

“It is constant and time consuming, and obtaining resource consents is expensive. It took three years and cost $480,000 to obtain a resource consent to remove the mangroves in 2015, the cost of actually removing the mangroves was $120,000,” he says. “We also have the added issue of opposing the commercial offshore sand mining consent which is coming up for renewal next year.”

The work the environmental guardians conduct is held in high esteem by many including Kaipara’s mayor and NRC’s south coastal councillor Rick Stolwerk, who says MHRS can ‘truly be looked on as one of the early pioneers’ of Northland’s volunteer environmental army, whose numbers have more than doubled over the past three years as a result of NRC’s environmental improvement initiatives. 

“The society members have also become involved in ‘community science’… using their combined academic and professional experiences to assist and advance the environmental health of the harbour and its environs,” he says. “Without question, if we are to improve water quality, exterminate introduced pests and recreate our lost indigenous landscape we need to get all Northlanders on side and work for the common good, a process the MHRS began 28 years ago and continues to move forward with at an accelerated pace.”

Locals thinking globally
Kaipara mayor, Dr Jason Smith, has clear memories of the events that led up to the forming of the MHRS nearly 30 years ago. 

“I remember when the harbour was sickening… and the community’s concerns. I also remember hearing that a group of blokes would be taking to the sand hills with diggers and bulldozers, just wanting to get on with the job of fixing it!” he says. “These resourceful volunteers achieved a remarkable feat, literally turning back the tide. Their story of resilience, determination and a can-do attitude, qualities on which Kaipara communities are built, is well told in the Mangawhai Museum.”

Supported financially by council through an $80 targeted rate on all properties in the harbour catchment, Smith says the MHRS is the kind of organisation which is ‘filled with local people who know their local place and choose to act locally while thinking globally’. 

“The life-force of the place is good… as the community grows and the jewel that is the Mangawhai Harbour comes to be appreciated by more people, the work of the MHRS will stand as an important testament to the courageous leadership found in a magical place like Mangawhai,” he says. “Congratulations to everyone associated with the MHRS, to the community which supports this important work and to the bright future of Mangawhai Harbour. Happy 28th anniversary!”

The Spirit of Mangawhai shifted tonnes of sand over thousands of hours, playing its own important part in the saving of the harbour.

Major players and comrades from The Big Dig, from left Ian Cameron, Jim Wintle,  Noel Cullen and former KDC deputy mayor Peter Bull. Says Jim Wintle: “We were prepared to get carted off and put behind bars during those first four days.” PHOTO/SUPPLIED