Supporters asked to join sand mining beach protest

KEN RAYWARD

Mangawhai’s growing movement to protect the area’s marine environment against sandmining is being taken to the coastline, with a call to stand united in the surf and sand.

There are three mining consent applications about to be considered. If even one was to be successful, the detrimental environmental impact on our beaches will never be reversed. Every grain, kilo or tonne of sand removed can never be replaced as we have no river system to replenish the mined sand.

To demonstrate your objection to the sand mining consents, which are seeking to dig from a five to 25 metre depth, we ask you to join with other like-minded Mangawhai and Pakiri community members in a ‘Stand Against Sand Mining’ gathering at the Mangawhai Heads beach on February 14, 12 noon.

This is about protecting our beaches from being stolen under our watch, by Auckland-based companies that enjoy great profits from decimating our coastline by removing our taonga sand.

Trenches dug by mining operators create underwater valleys, with all shell marine life damaged, and a coastline length valley that gets refilled from sands on the shoreline, not from the sea, resulting in coastal cliff and shoreline collapse through enforced erosion.

The Mangawhai community and surrounds, have the opportunity to ensure some long-term environmental protections and our coastline is not exposed to detrimental change through the short-term need of commercial gain.

‘Stand Against Sand Mining’ will be the start of a unified opposition to the mining consent applications being considered from March 1 in the Warkworth Town Hall.

If you want to look into your grandkids eyes one day in the not-too-distant future, and explain to them that you so wished they had the same beaches that you grew up with and loved, but sadly they have been taken to make concrete for places unknown, all I can say is ‘good luck with that’.

While we are often told we should live in the now, it is sometimes hard to appreciate, that what we actually do in the now is so important for what our next generations will have to live with.

NZ Fairy Tern Charitable Trust chair Heather Rogan says members are also concerned about the potential harm to the coastline due to ongoing sandmining.

“We are worried that there will be widespread and unacceptable changes to marine and coastal environments and all life that inhabits these ecosystems if such massive amounts of sand are dredged, and we support the objections to the sand mining consents.”

Peaceful, wild and free; Te Arai and Pakiri coastlines are at the heart of a growing anti-sand mining movement, with a community protest to be held at neighbouring Mangawhai Heads surf beach on February 14. PHOTO/JULIA WADE