A reader drew my attention to three recent news items about vehicles on South Island beaches:
- Vehicles banned from Marlborough's east coast, except for 9km stretch | Stuff.co.nz, 03 March 2023.
- [The ban] comes after years of back and forth, as conservationists and one iwi called for a blanket ban on vehicles, yet fisherman argued they needed vehicle access. Meanwhile, some iwi said it breached their customary right to gather kaimoana. … Marlborough mayor Nadine Taylor said the council expected everyone to "collectively protect" the fragile dune and reef systems, and rare and threatened biodiversity from vehicles.
- Beach barriers being damaged and removed a district-wide issue | Stuff.co.nz, 20 March 2023.
- People are "consistently" damaging beach barriers, towing them away or even using a chainsaw, to get vehicle access on Tasman beaches. … Concerns reported to council included damage to dunes, harm to flora and fauna, danger to other beach users, and "disturbance of the peaceful enjoyment of the beach environment". … report from August 2022 written by ornithologist Nikki McArthur, stating that off-road vehicle use along the coastline could have adverse impacts, such as "disturbing or destroying nests of ground-nesting birds, resulting in the loss of eggs, chicks and adult birds during the breeding season". "Losses can be particularly severe for colony nesting species such as black-billed gulls and black-fronted terns, which can lose dozens of nests or chicks in a single disturbance event"
- Vehicle crushes eggs and nests on sandspit in 'blatant disregard for nature' | Stuff.co.nz, 13 July 2023.
A four-wheel drive vehicle crushed four nests and eight variable oystercatcher eggs in an incident caught on camera at a Golden Bay sandspit. … A trail camera had been mounted on a post to observe the nesting period of five pairs of variable oystercatchers at the Rototai Sandspit, near Takaka.
Observers had been watching the video for weeks, and knew that it was just a few days before the birds were due to hatch, when the driver went onto the sandspit, ignoring signage to stay away from the area, and crushed eight eggs and four nests.
"They missed one nest out of the five," McConville told the Tasman District Council's operations committee.
The footage was being used in the legal prosecution of the driver by the council, she said.
In a separate incident on July 1, McConville was one of nine people who witnessed a trio of two motorcyclists and a quad bike without a muffler on the Motupipi Estuary.
McConville described the incident as a "real rampage", riding straight through a group of feeding Royal spoonbills, travelling through the area at "incredible speeds", and "leaping out" onto the tidal flats.
The trio have been reported to police for dangerous driving, McConville said.
… McConville said the damage caused by vehicles in the area was severe for coastal birds.
Incidents of careless vehicle use and blatant disregard for the environment are usually just the acts of one or two individuals, but they make it much harder for the other mainly responsible drivers to argue for continued access.
It seems Councils all over Aotearoa are facing the problem of how to protect the environment and the other beach users from this kind of reckless behaviour.
Update, 20 July 2023. A North Island item: Dune hoons are allegedly driving other beach-goers off the Pouto Peninsula on the Kaipara Harbour.
Dangerous dune hoons driving Northland beach goers away, say locals | RNZ.
