Doug Lloyd, Chairman Mangawhai Matters
(Mangawhai Focus 2 December 2024, page 3).
Mangawhai, like other coastal communities, is having to front up to the threat of a more volatile climate. So, it is disappointing to see our representative on the Northland Regional Council, Rick Stolwerk, disagreeing with local Kaipara councillor, Mike Howard, on the possibility of dredging the accumulation of sand from the channel near Mangawhai Heads Holiday Park.
Mr Stolwerk dismisses the possibility by citing dredging in Whangarei Harbour where it is justified to “keep their operations going”. The dredging he refers to provides a private economic benefit to the listed company, Channel Infrastructure (formerly NZ Refining Company), which funds it. The only difference from Mangawhai is that dredging here provides a public rather than private benefit.
Mr Stolwerk also points out that the Regional Council has no legislative responsibility to keep harbour waters navigable, and is concerned simply with structures and safety. It does, however, have a regulatory role with a direct bearing on the condition and use of the harbour through the Coastal Regional Plan it administers.
Maintaining navigability is a role that Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society undertakes on behalf of the community, subject to the conditions imposed on it by the Regional Council. The Society is funded to do this by local ratepayers because doing so provides benefits to a wide range of people and organisations.
The Regional Council must consider the economic significance of our harbour should it be faced with an application for a change to or extension of the current dredging resource consent. For example, we estimate the value of the benefits visitors enjoy by coming to Mangawhai at over $50m/year. This is based on what they spend on travel and accommodation simply to get and stay here.
Our research also shows that while people from outside Kaipara were here, they spent another $50m in local businesses in 2024 (March year), or 40% of total Mangawhai sales.
We know that many of these visitors come to enjoy the harbour. Over a third of respondents to our 2023 visitor survey said they swim in it, 5% that they participate in paddling sports, 8% go ocean fishing via the harbour, and 5% fish in the harbour. It follows that a large share of local incomes and jobs will be at risk if the harbour becomes less useable or attractive to visitors.
Much of the residential appeal of Mangawhai can also be attributed to the quality of the harbour. An earlier (2021) survey asked respondents to rank the measures (from a list of eleven) that they thought most important to manage Mangawhai’s growth. Protection of the harbour was by far the highest priority given by both residents and visitors.
The appeal of the harbour, then, goes a long way to explaining why Mangawhai’s growth rate is the highest in the country, with the population more than doubling between 2013 and 2023.
A strong residential sector in turn supports a strong job market. Together growth in resident and visitor numbers explain the expansion of local retailing, construction, and services. These activities jointly accounted for nearly 96% of Mangawhai-based jobs.
The harbour, then, is critical to sustaining Mangawhai incomes and jobs. For both visitors and residents the economic consequences will be far reaching if it becomes less attractive. For Mr Stolwerk to dismiss the value of a functioning harbour shows little understanding of how it underpins the community’s very existence.
As if the economic benefits of a healthy and usable harbour are not enough to justify investment in protecting it, the Dickson report raises the prospect that the spit’s role as the harbour’s protective barrier will be threatened if we encounter storms like the one that breached it in 1978. Major spit inundation or another breach would put at risk the biodiversity associated with a healthy harbour and the spit.
Mangawhai Matters is currently seeking to extend its research into the environmental consequences of such prospects. Replenishing the parts of the spit vulnerable to flooding by dredging sand blown into the channel back onto the spit may be an important option for reducing any climate-related threat to Mangawhai’s distinctive physical environmental and economic wellbeing.