Coastal scientist Jim Dahm led the Working With Nature workshop that preceded the Coastal Restoration Trust's annual conference. Photo / Bevan Conley
Coastal scientist Jim Dahm led the Working With Nature workshop that preceded the Coastal Restoration Trust's annual conference. Photo / Bevan Conley
New Zealanders need a better relationship with the sea - and that could mean moving back and giving nature more room, coastal scientist Jim Dahm says.
He is a founding member of the Coastal Restoration Trust, which is having its annual conference in Whanganui this week.
Coasts needed to bemanaged better, he said, with less time spent fighting the sea.
"If we want to improve the management of the coast, we need to make a better effort to inform and involve the community.
"At the moment too much is being done by professionals and councils. The consequence of that is that changes we are trying to get are occurring too slowly.
"Council staff are often quite reticent to make changes that the community don't understand, so really we need to explain what's going on to communities much more, and move away from technocratic to a more democratic approach to planning."
If developers gave the coast more room, less effort would be needed to fight the sea, he said.
"To recover a lot of our lost ecosystems we have got to move back and give nature more space."
Sea level rise was at crisis point for Hawke's Bay towns like Haumoana. Whanganui people were lucky their coastline was building up rather than being cut into.
"You are in a very privileged situation, one of the few parts of New Zealand where the coast is still aggrading," Dahm said.
The sand that flows south down this coast would mitigate the effect of sea level rise, he said. But it would not stop cliffs eroding under more frequent wave attacks.
"Certainly we are expecting quite significant increase in erosion of soft cliffs, and cliffs in general."
Vehicles had been a point of contention on Whanganui beaches, and Dahm said they did not belong in dunes.
"It's a sure way to create blowouts and wind erosion problems, and that gets very serious very quickly."
Vehicles going to beaches needed a well-defined accessway that they kept to, he said.
Vehicles driving on hard sand were another matter. Driving beaches was a long-established habit that was highly valued, Dahm said, but it could affect shellfish and nesting birds.
He expected beach driving to get less common, as people learned more about coastal ecosystems.
"Most people are fairly well-intentioned. If they're well informed and you work collaboratively with them then you generally get a very, very high level of co-operation."
Colin Ogle (left) received the Pingao & Toheroa Award from Coastal Restoration Trust trustee Graeme La Cock. Photo / Laurel Stowell
There are 110 people at the Coastal Restoration Trust conference titled Living on a Dynamic Coast Ko Te Kawa o Tangaroa, which finishes today.
It is based at the Grand Hotel, with field trips to Turakina Beach, Waverley and Waipipi.
On Wednesday, March 10, Whanganui ecologist Colin Ogle spoke on coastal vegetation. He was then presented with the trust's Pingao & Toheroa Award for an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to coastal restoration.
One of the other speakers was James Renwick, a Climate Change Commissioner.
The conference has been slightly affected by Covid-19, administrator Lyneke Onderwater said. Auckland people, who are at level 2, have been unable to attend an occasion with more than 100 people.
