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An isolated beach on Northland's idyllic Kauri Coast has been reborn through the work of retired couple George and Veronica Nathan-Patuawa.
The couple, both 69, set up a trust in 1997 to reform and replant the beach's dunes. They planted ti-tree and pingao (a native sand sedge) to recreate the dunes and give juvenile toheroa - a rare native shellfish - a place to grow.
The dunes have responded, going from nothing in 1997 to an 800m stretch of dune nearly 2m high.
Their work has since extended to cleaning the area's fresh waterways, constructing a community greenhouse growing vegetables and native seedlings, and mowing lawns for the tiny community's widows.
Their philosophy for the work is simple, Mrs Nathan-Patuawa said.
"If the land is well, then the people that live on the land are well. The beach is everything to us, for us and the community at large.
"Our main interest is for the rest of our kaimoana [seafood], and the care of the beach. We get a lot of satisfaction out of seeing the pingao grow, and seeing the waterways clean."
Years of run-off from the surrounding farms had left the waterways - once teeming with freshwater crayfish, eels, trout and whitebait - as empty relics of their former life.
But the Nathan-Patuawas set about reversing that trend too, and are now seeing signs of life.
The reward is in the streams, the dunes, and the vegetable garden.
"And we're going to do it as long as we can walk. We'll work like this until we die."
