Most beach drivers avoid the dunes

Monday 22 January 2007

Most people who drive vehicles onto Bay of Plenty beaches avoid the sand dunes because they don’t want to damage them. But a maverick few, including motorbike riders, are giving the rest a bad name.

That’s what Otago University student Kieran Douglas has found during interviews with dozens of beach drivers over summer.

Environment Bay of Plenty is employing Kieran to do the survey because the regional council wants to find out the scale of the problem in the region. It also wants to know whether people are aware they might be harming the dunes if they drive on them.

Kieran talked to about 75 drivers from Waihi Beach to the East Cape between late December and mid-January. In that time, he counted about 150 vehicles in the coastal zone, mostly four wheel drives and quad bikes with a few motorbikes.

He was pleased that nearly all used official accessways to reach the beach and then travelled on the hard sand once there. He spotted only a few vehicles parked on the crest of the dunes. Most tracks had been made by motorbikes and quad bikes. “Bike riders may well be the main cause of a large amount of damage, in which case they’re giving everyone else a bad name.”

Many drivers of four wheel drive vehicles already knew to stay off the dunes, and the reason why. “They mentioned it without being asked, which was great. They realised that their vehicles can destroy important dune vegetation. Of course, one of the other reasons they didn’t go onto the soft sand was they didn’t want to get stuck.”

Environment Bay of Plenty planner Andrew Wharton says the survey will help the regional council and coastal district and city councils find ways to resolve the problem. “It’s good to find out the problem areas, and what areas may need some extra accessways to reduce the dune damage.” The final survey results, and recommendations from them, will be collated later this month.

Vehicles driven over soft sand and dunes can crush birds’ nests and invertebrates. The wheels compact the sand, which can make it inhospitable for the creatures living underneath. Vehicles also chew up the plants that bind sand dunes and make them stronger. Without plants, the sand dunes can simply blow away – leaving the land more vulnerable to erosion and flooding.

ENDS

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