Graeme Atkins at Tikapa Beach.
Government funding for woody debris removal means remote Tikapa Beach north of Ruatōria is finally being cleared of logs and debris built up over decades. Sophie Rishworth talks to Tikapa resident, award-winning conservationist Graeme Atkins.
There was no way Graeme Atkins was going to put up with the destruction and loss of Tikapa Beach through two decades of being inundated by logs and mud.
Atkins has deep roots in Tikapa, near Tikitiki on the East Coast, that span generations of his whānau.
He has tirelessly advocated for the protection of delicate ecosystems, including the abundant foreshore at Tikapa, which has suffered huge damage from storms.
Social media has been “really handy” to get the message out and the beach is finally being cleaned.
Atkins, 57, lives in Tikapa, a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Gisborne on a mix of gravel and tar-sealed roads.
This secluded beach has borne the brunt of run-off from the largest catchment in Tairāwhiti - the Waiapu – because it sits directly south of the Waiapu River mouth.
Waiapu Catchment has some of the steepest, most erosion-prone hills in the region. When combined with forest harvesting on steep slopes followed by severe weather events, the repercussions have hugely impacted the way of life for everyone who lives downstream.
And because Tikapa Beach is so remote, with only six households calling it home, any funding to clean Tairāwhiti beaches first goes on more widely used ones.
The isolated area is a piece of paradise.
Atkins and his neighbours love the peace and quiet and wouldn’t have it any other way. Their homes run on solar power with water from an underground spring. But their remoteness, and small population, mean they get bumped down the priority list for beach clean-ups.
This clean-up has been a long time coming and it won’t leave “much change from a million”, Atkins says.
He’s a bit frustrated it had to be taxpayer-funded when he’s upfront about who should be paying for it.
“There’s a moral obligation for forestry to come and clean up their mess. The industry should be contributing to a regional clean-up.”
Instead, the funding in February came from the Government, with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announcing $23.6 million to help Gisborne District Council continue urgent work removing and disposing of sediment and debris left from Cyclone Gabrielle.
Last month’s Budget announced a further $27m towards wood debris and sediment removal.
Tikapa’s clean-up is expected to be finished around the end of June.
Local contractors were hired, with Dewes Contractors cleaning to the south and Rewi Contractors to the north. The huge piles of logs are being burned on site as this beach is in the middle of nowhere.
While Atkins is grateful the beach is being cleaned, he’s not naive enough to think it will stay this way. “The next lot of heavy rain will bring more wood down.”
He has seen the waste wood still lying in the upper catchment from prior harvests.
“It’s a hundred times more than what came down the river last year.”
Atkins says in the first five years after Cyclone Bola (1988), 100,000ha of former pastureland was converted to pine.
“And they all matured at the same time. For those of us who live downstream, it affects our way of life. Why should we have to put up with this?”
In the past 20 years only one forestry company has come to see them, Atkins says.
“Niwa were up here [last] month to look at the impacts of sediment from the Waiapu Catchment on marine life.
“They had a research vessel with an underwater camera and dragged it along the sea floor for a kilometre.”
It told them what they already knew.
“There was nothing there. Just mud and logs.”
There is a 2km dead zone in front of Tikapa Beach where “a generation of seafood” was wiped out after Cyclone Gabrielle last year - thousands of koura, pāua, crayfish, kina, and mussels died.
“The mud killed them - the sea smelled like mud and looked like soup,” Atkins says.
Thousands of tonnes of wood and debris washed up along a 10km stretch of beach, which added a hefty layer to what had been piling up for 20 years.
Atkins remembers swimming, fishing and surfing at this beach when it was sand as far as the eye could see, and when it felt like the sea would always provide.
Gisborne District Council principal scientist Dr Murry Cave has noted in his reports that Tikapa Beach differed from other coast beaches as the wood waste was more weathered - indicating a long residence time in the catchment. He also said the make-up of the waste wood was about 50 per cent pine.
Restoration, bit by bit
Restoration is happening, even if it can feel like one step forward and two steps back. Atkins is aware most of the positive benefits could be after he’s gone.
“The kai moana will regenerate but it’ll take a generation.”
However, the rangatahi who call Tikapa home can now experience their beach with sand.
“For 20 years we’ve had to time any visit to the beach with low tide - now we can go anytime we want, like we used to.”
Swimming is great to the right of the rock where there’s a sand bar and you can walk out for ages. But to the left, by the river mouth, it drops off suddenly. No good for swimming but great for fishing, and that’s a happy place for many as they catch snapper, kahawai and gurnard.
The removal of the wood brings plenty of environmental benefits. As contractors take away large logs with machinery, they often see dozens of rats scurrying away from underneath them. The nesting birds are returning.
If Atkins sees a totara log among the waste on the beach, he spray paints it pink to ask contractors to leave it be. He’ll come back and collect it later as the wood is prized for its carving properties and will be used for projects at Pokai Marae up the road.
The golden grass growing on the dunes called pīngao was planted by Atkins and a group of local Nannies. Pīngao has the dual purpose of trapping sand to rebuild dunes as well as being woven into tukutuku panels for the marae.
One-eyed for natives
In the year 2000 Atkins and a group of others from the area planted a pōhutukawa every 100m along Tikapa Road. He wants to get as many people bitten by the “tree bug” as possible and he’s one-eyed for natives.
“I honestly believe there’s space for us as humans and also space for native trees – the original owners of this place.”
He and Makere’s backyard is a haven for natives. In 1999, they fenced off the stream behind their place to prevent cattle, goat and deer from entering the area.
Over 25 years the regeneration and regrowth have been such that you can no longer see across the gully, with the top storey and understorey both going well.
Atkins is the epitome of kaitiaki/guardianship – and of how one person can make a difference.
Restoration of the Raukumara Range has been his focus for the past 30 years.
The hill country is well-known internationally for its steep and dangerous terrain. Gullies are super-prone to erosion and can’t cope with the rain.
“We’ve known for more than a century how vulnerable this landscape is. We haven’t learnt a bloody thing.”
There’s no better way of doing something than doing it yourself, he says.
Social media has meant he can now share this part of the world and what is happening.
Thirty years ago, Atkins would wake up to the dawn chorus in the Raukumara Range.
But a video he took at dawn a few years ago recorded how eerily quiet the forest now was - with only the sound of a cricket chirping.
In 2020, Graeme spent six hours with then Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage to show her first-hand the death and destruction around the East Coast due to how massively overlooked it had been for decades.
As a result of that visit, $35m in funding was given to Raukumara Pae Maunga to be spent between 2020 and 2026.
The project is shared between Ngāti Porou and Te Whānau a Apanui. An iwi-led initiative was established and the number of employees jumped from just Atkins to 44 people who can now focus on restoring the taiao.
The funding covers two large aerial applications of 1080.
Atkins is unapologetic about its use. He wouldn’t put the hunting and fishing lifestyle he and his whānau love in jeopardy. And he’s not, he says.
What used to be a Garden of Eden in the Raukumara Range is now described as an empty shell over-run by possums, deer, goats, pigs, rats, stoats and feral cats.
The areas where 1080 is applied are where the deer and goats are skinny, and you’d have to helicopter in to hunt them.
He says the benefits are already starting to appear, as bird song increases and permanent indigenous trees begin to recover.
Atkins (Ngāti Porou and Rongomaiwahine) was a finalist in the Ministry for the Environment Environmental Hero of the Year category 2024, and the 2020 winner of the Loder Cup, awarded by the Minister of Conservation each year to a person or group to celebrate their outstanding conservation work in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Kakabeak Regeneration
Kakabeak is another passion for Atkins.
There are less than 100 kakabeaks left in the wild but there are about 1000 that have been planted around his home, making it the nation’s No. 1 kakabeak garden.
To share the love, he is helping organise a Kakabeak Festival over three days in September this year, with people able to travel between three locations to visit the gardens – his included.
Atkins says what it comes down to, essentially, is that you have to look after your own place because no one else will.
He doesn’t say it with resentment, but with a sense of care and privilege to be helping look after this piece of paradise.