Eco-Warriors Make Waves In New Zealand
Save the Waves representatives James Pribram and Will Henry returned from New Zealand this week, after completing yet another successful mission on a voyage sponsored by XS Energy Drinks. Henry and Pribram traveled to New Zealand’s North Island in order to help the fight to preserve a precious surfing resource, Whangamata Bar, from being damaged by a marina proposal.
The trip was documented by filmmaker Vince Deur, who is working on a series titled Eco-Warriors: Guardians of Surf, to be released later this year. Henry and Pribram met with leaders from the Surfbreak Protection Society (SPS), as well as Tariana Turia, member of Parliament and leader of the Maori Party, in the capitol city of Wellington on March 28. Next the Eco-Warriors traveled up the east coast, where they sampled waves near the new artificial surfing reef at Mount Maunganui, before settling in for a few days at Whangamata.
“The wave at Whangamata is an absolute gem,” said Pribram after his first surf at Whanga Bar, as the locals call it. “To damage this spot would be a crime against nature.” The wave, which peels down a long sand bar at the mouth of an estuary, is being threatened by a marina proposal that will dredge huge amounts of sand and other material from the harbor floor and place on the wetlands of the estuary, as well as construct a large seawall to protect the newly dredged channel. Surfers and some ocean experts fear that the disruption inside the estuary will cause the sandbar to disappear, hence causing serious degradation to the wave quality at Whanga Bar.
“The estuary has existed for thousands of years in a delicate equilibrium, “ states Paul Shanks, President of SPS, “with sand on the inside and the outside of the channel in a perfect balance, which is what creates the excellent surfing conditions. What we are worried will happen is, if you dig a huge hole inside the estuary, sand will disappear off the bar to fill it in.”
Proponents of the marina have been trying for more than fifteen years to gain approval for the project, despite the fact that 175 moorings already exist inside the estuary. Approval was just granted this year, in a controversial reversal of decision by the Hon. David Benson-Pope, Minister of the Environment. Mooring space near the open ocean is relatively scarce these days in New Zealand, which is the driving economic force behind the proposed project; investors stand to make a substantial sum of money by selling their berth space once the marina is complete. But opponents of the marina don’t believe that the project is worth sacrificing a world-class surf spot just to make a few people wealthier.
“Whangamata is a surf town – it started out as one and still is one – so why is it that the boaters suddenly can come in here and walk all over us?” queried Shanks. During the trip, the marina society attempted to dig test holes in the estuary in order to prepare for the marina’s construction, however the testing was halted by four local Maori, who stood on the equipment in protest. Representatives of two Hauraki tribal groups said “ the marina society were working on an illegal consent, and requested that they “please leave the fore shore.” Regardless, marina proponents vowed to continue with the contentious project. “Once again, it’s a case of the big guys versus the little guys,” said Will Henry, executive director of Save the Waves Coalition. “As soon as investors smell money, the surfers will have to go surf somewhere else. We aren’t going to sit around and let it happen again.”
For more information go to: www.ecowarriorsurf.com.