News

CoastCare Northland has had another busy planting season with 9800 spinifex, 4500 pingao, and 1150 back-dune plants provided to groups for planting at sites around Northland’s coast.  Groups have also been busy with weed and pest control and putting up fences and signs to protect the dunes.

Dune restoration at Long Beach began in 2011 with a group of local residents keen to protect the few remaining patches of spinifex on the beach, and expand them by planting.  Planting was initially mainly on the lower part of the dune below the kikuyu, but this made the planting vulnerable to storms and also made the control of the kikuyu a big on-going job.  Dune restoration at Russell took a big step forward this winter with local residents agreeing  to have the kikuyu mechanically removed and replaced with native sand-binders to establish a wider dune that will provide a buffer and allow for dune recovery after storm erosion.  Response has been extremely positive and it is planned to continue the work along the beach.

Mangawhai Heads is another popular Northland beach and many feet trampling a relatively small area has had an impact on the sand dunes there.  Despite previous work by the Kaipara District Council to help restore the dune area, weeds have taken over parts of the dunes, and damaged fences and walk-ways have led to plants being crushed and caused large dune blow-outs.  A collaborative project has been set up with both councils and the local community.  Weed control was undertaken and then a planting day was held with around 25 people planting 1300 plants in the “stage one” area in just over an hour.  Stage two of weed control and planting is planned for next year.

 For more detail on these stories and information on other CoastCare Northland activities, email [Enable JavaScript to view protected content] for a copy of the latest CoastCare News or visit www.nrc.govt.nz/CoastCare

The project is now in its final stages, with all the main methodologies sorted out and the data manipulation now complete. While the project has not exactly gone to plan. this has been a fantastic learning experience where I have had to learn all sorts of techniques around remote sensing and image analysis, as well as furthering my understanding of coastal ecosystems.  

As far as what I expect the key results of the project will be, this project is likely to show just as much about the importance of setting up the image acquisition and preparation correctly as it is going to about how we can use the images from remote sensing to analyse dune environments. For instance, dune environments can be highly dynamic, both physically and with seasonal fluctuations in vegetation activity and cover. This means that for these types of studies, collecting both the remote sensing and field data at similar times will be important to ensure high accuracy in image classification and any further analysis and modelling with the data.

I believe that drone based aerial surveys of dune environments are very well suited to small scale monitoring projects, as I have found that a strong understanding of your study environment is important for image interpretation at such fine spatial scales.

Photos:

“Plots” shows the plant community study polygons overlayed with the GPS points taken in feild. The relatively high spatial error of the gps unit used (50cm post-processing, compared to the pixels which are 10 cm by 10 cm) meant that the exact locations of plots were not able to be located.

“Water” is one of many seasonal water bodies that occurs at Ocean Beach. Ground water can significantly affect spectral data, resulting in higher amounts of error unless properly accounted for.

Some names of beaches, islands and other features around Waitemata Harbour have been officially changed following Te Kawerau ā Maki Treaty of Waitangi Settlement 2015.

Check here for the detail.

Some of you have been asking… and we are excited to be able to tell you the dates and venue for our next conference.

It will be held 30 March -1 April at the Wanui Surf Life Saving Club, Moana Road in Gisborne.

The format will be much like last year, which means about 1,5 days of fieldtrips as well as presentations by local and national speakers and a chance for local groups to show their progress.

This is a part of the country that is a bit out of the way for many of us, so it might be a good chance to have a good look around before and/or after our conference. Please remember that you can support our trust by booking your accommodation through Kiwi Karma and select us as your favourite charity.

More information will be published here as it becomes available.

The Coastal Restoration Trust has recently signed up with Kiwi Karma, an accommodation booking agency that donates a percentage of what you pay to the charity of your choice. To support us, simply book your next accommodation through them, choose the Coastal Restoration Trust as the charity, and we will get either 5% or 8% depending on which hotel/motel you book.

Go here to read more and make your booking.

They currently have a “Who deserves your act of kindness?” action, for which you can nominate someone(s). Go here to take part.