'Our own little Amazon rainforest': Former PM and the dotterels of Waihi Beach

Waihi Beach Dot Watch volunteers Helen Clark (front) with John Heaphy, Sam Mortensen, Pippa Coombes, and Wayne Allchorne. Photo / Alison Smith

When not working on international sustainable development, climate action and gender equality, Helen Clark is minding the dotterels at Waihi Beach.

There are only 2500 New Zealand dotterels left in the world, making them rarer than brown kiwi and at risk of extinction.

Helen is among those helping to change that.

"This bird is interesting to watch," she says simply.

"It's a busy bird. It scurries a lot. I walk up here every day to have a look, and when there's a female on the nest and the male is patrolling, they'll try to divert you. They're smart, and they like to nest where they can look around. They spend a lot of time on site selection, and it's an intelligent bird. It has this unique movement."

Helen has been coming to Waihi Beach since she was 10.

She is at the forefront of locals efforts to protect the dotterel, which relies upon a habitat that has become threatening to them.

Housing on the beach, recreational development, people, dogs, introduced stoats, rats and other predators, rising sea levels - the birds benefit from fencing and signage around their nests, installed by Waihi Beach Dot Watch volunteers.

From nine eggs, Dot Watch had three chicks fledge last season, and they hope to improve on this as more birds spill over from neighbouring regions and attempt to nest on beaches and reserves.

A nesting dotterel at Whangamata Beach is being protected by volunteers in the Whangamata community. Photo / Supplied

Helen's husband Peter Davis, who grew up as a child in East Africa and "loves birdlife", keeps a close eye on the birds, as does her father who has a chair in his Waihi Beach backyard watching whiteeyes, finches and tuis.

"There is birdlife here, but this one is very special," says Helen.

Helen is also the patron of the Routeburn Dart Wildlife Trust and visited three of New Zealand's big tracks last year, noting the absence of bird song.

A former prime minister and conservation minister, she rolls her sleeves up for Waihi Beach's most endangered local.

"You never regain a part of the ecosystem once it's lost. Once the dotterel is gone, it's gone and will be stuffed in a museum for people to look at.

"The dotterel has intrinsic value because it's arisen in this shorebird ecosystem. It's got its place."

Helen believes the lockdowns have helped New Zealanders reconnect with their local environment.

"I spent the first seven-week lockdown in Auckland last year and it was amazing what you could hear without the traffic. Around the world, you get similar stories.

"In Kathmandu, they could see Mt Everest for the first time in living memory, and in Delhi the air pollution fell to satisfactory levels.

"I think there's also reflection that we have 'developed' in a way that has totally overwhelmed the planet and its carrying capacity. We are destroying the habitats for other species. Humans are the ultimate predator species that can kill anything and we have, so I think there's a reflection that it has gone too far."

A pandemic is also what arises when the environment reaches a state of impoverishment.

Helen attended a recent event for the Swedish government talking about prevention at source.

Izzy Stewart-Neate, 6, of Waihi Beach School, with her winning picture for protecting the dotterel. Photo / Alison Smith

"Putting aside the debate about where this virus came from, the zoonotic spillover events are becoming increasingly common and we don't know which of them is going to have the explosive effect of say Ebola, HIV or Covid.

"But they come from us intruding into an animal world where we are in conflict with a species. So the prevention-at-source movement that's sprung up and has now got serious government backing is saying, 'see the pandemic threat alongside the threat to the forest, the habitat and the species'. The forest habitat protection is also critical to the climate ecosystem."

Indigenous cultures, too, have something to offer here.

"Where forests have been able to stay under the protection of indigenous people, deforestation rates have been significantly lower."

She points to tragic events in the Amazon where the government of Brazil has allowed development for farming, destroying the ecosystem services of the forest, the species in the forest including the people who have lived within it for millennia.

Some say it has tipped that point already.

As much as 40 per cent of the existing Amazon rainforest is now at a point where it could exist as a savannah instead of as rainforest, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications.

As Helen stands at the Waihi Beach back dune reserve land, where dotterels scrape their nests in the short grass that was once a much larger habitat they could roam, she reflects on being a local, thinking globally and acting locally.

"This is our own little Amazon forest," she agrees.

Ideally, she says, the council wouldn't develop a big playground on what's become a virtual slither of remaining habitat for this endangered bird.

"When I was minister of conservation I ensured that it got reserve protection, but in a way it would've been nice if it was just put back into dune," she says.

Western Bay of Plenty District Council has begun to work with Waihi Beach Dot Watch and predator trapping volunteers and dotterel experts from the Department of Conservation, which says the dotterel is "management dependent" and will not survive on its own.

"It's wonderful to see iwi, district council and a local volunteer group getting together to help protect one of our threatened species to ensure its survival into the future," says John, Heaphy, biodiversity ranger for DoC Tauranga.

Dotterels are shore-nesting birds that breed from around August until February. They will often use open spaces such as beaches, reserves and golf courses for making a rudimentary nest and laying up to three eggs, making them vulnerable to predators, dogs, and humans.

Human disturbance and predators are making it increasingly more difficult for these birds to breed.

All beachgoers can play their part by knowing what a nesting site looks like, keeping clear of them, and keeping dogs away.
• The first nest of the season in Whangamata has been fenced by Whangamata dotterel minders at access 11.