Mangroves form an ever-present backdrop to the view from Kaipara Mayor Craig Jepson's harbourside home. Photo: Susan Botting Local Democracy Reporter Northland
A Mangawhai Harbour campaigner says his community will take matters into its own hands if bureaucracy stymies mangrove removal.
Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society (MHRS) member John Pearson's warning comes in a new 40-minute pro-mangrove-removal video commissioned by Kaipara Mayor and Mangawhai resident Craig Jepson.
Jepson is formally pushing for his Mangawhai and the Mangroves documentary-style video to be loaded onto Kaipara District Council communication channels in a special formal notice of motion at the council's meeting in Mangawhai on Wednesday.
The Mayor commissioned the $8000 video and paid for it out of his own pocket.
"I commissioned it because there is so much misunderstanding of mangroves' role in our marine ecosystem," Jepson said.
"And the public is tired of inaction."
Jepson wanted more than 20 hectares of the mangroves removed because he believed they were destroying the harbour and its biodiversity, including flounder and shellfish beds plus wading bird haunts and that mangroves were also filling in the channels.
Some of the Mangawhai Harbour mangroves east of the settlement's main north-south drag that Kaipara Mayor Craig Jepson wants gone. Photo: Susan Botting Local Democracy Reporter Northland
NRC group manager regulatory Colin Dall said Northland mangroves were protected because they were indigenous, stabilised land and acted as floodwater buffer zones.
There were set rules and guidelines for mangrove pruning and removal to ensure their protection while balancing community needs.
All mangrove removal needed to be undertaken in accordance with the RMA and Northland's Proposed Regional Plan.
In the video, Pearson says the community had a history of taking matters into its own hands in the face of bureaucratic inaction as evidenced by its 1991 Big Dig in the then beleaguered Mangawhai sandspit.
Dozens of locals and more than 40 diggers and tractors turned out for the 1991 Mangawhai Spit Big Dig aimed at restoring the harbour's northern entrance after damage from Cyclone Bola and other storms. Photo: NZME / LDR
"I've got great belief in the community. Going away back when the Big Dig occurred, the people who were in Mangawhai could see what was going on and they could see that was what was happening.
"Yes, the bureaucracies, the Northland Regional Council (NRC) and Department of Conservation (DoC) and all those just didn't want to know. Their attitude was 'Oh well, just leave it alone, that's nature for you'."
"So I am a great believer in the future, people if things come to a serious situation, they will react in exactly the same way.
"At the end of the day the community is about us, not about Northland Regional Council and Department of Conservation's rules and regulations," Pearson said.
The harbour restoration society has a 35-year resource consent until 2048 to remove 35ha of harbour mangrove seedlings each year.
Former NRC chair, Mangawhai resident and pro-mangrove removal campaigner Mark Farnsworth said in the video that mangroves should be "controlled" in selected areas of the harbour flats.
Dall said in response to Pearson's threat of community action NRC had to follow up when the Resource Management Act (RMA) and other legislation was not complied with.
"The regional rules for resource use in Northland have gone through a public process and everyone had an opportunity to be involved in the process and have their say on those rules, including community groups," he said.
"These provisions were developed alongside many experts in the field over several years, including evidence being considered and the Environment Court and High Court."
MRHS had been among those who'd had input into these.
DoC operations manager Whangārei Joel Lauterbach said in response to Pearson's comments his organisation acknowledged Mangawhai's historical activism in addressing local environmental challenges.
He also said any mangrove removal action or other environmental modifications had to comply with New Zealand's legal framework including the RMA.
"Future proposals for mangrove removal must go through the proper resource consent process where DoC and potentially affected parties may provide input based on potential environmental impacts..."
Mangawhai resident and New Zealand Fairy Tern convenor Heather Rogan was horrified to hear the tenor of Pearson's comments around potential community action.
New Zealand Fairy Tern Trust convenor Heather Rogan said large-scale mangrove removal in Mangawhai Harbour in 2015/2016 negatively affected the extremely endangered birds Photo: Susan Botting Local Democracy Reporter Northland
Rogan said the video presented only one side of the mangrove debate. She challenged some of its points of view.
She said MHRT had done a great job with sorting the Mangawhai spit when it was breached.
But she questioned its movement into mangrove management.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.