Coromandel's iconic beaches are a major attraction for visitors over the summer months, and with thousands more people arriving for their Christmas and New Year holidays, we all need to respect our sand dunes.

“Sand dunes protect land and properties from erosion and storms, and on many of our beaches, sand dunes are also natural habitats for native species of birds such as the dotterel," says our Council's coastal management coordinator Tanya says.

“Our dunes are always changing as they erode and build up again, in cycles,” Tanya says.

In many places, our Council has worked hard with community groups during the year to restore vulnerable dune areas with native coastal plants that help build up dunes and maintain their natural function.

“The good news is we can all play our part in these efforts by staying off the sand dunes, not driving on beach reserves or the dunes and not leaving rubbish on the beach,” Tanya says.

Dune care is for everyone
Look out for the Coastcare - Waikato signs, like those above, on our beaches reminding people to use marked access ways to get to the beach to help protect our sand dunes.

Here are some other good guidelines to follow:

• Encourage children to respect the dunes and not play on them
• Do not light fires on the dunes. Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ) has declared a total fire ban in urban and rural areas across the Coromandel.
• Do not dump personal or household rubbish or greenwaste in the dunes. Do not leave rubbish on the beach fullstop!
• Respect the fences, which provide boundaries to help protect dune plants.
• Keep vehicles off the dunes. Important plants and creatures live in the dunes and motorbikes, 4WD vehicles and quad bikes harm them.
• Surf the waves, not the dunes: Sandboarding on the dunes destroys plants and loosens the sand, which allows wind erosion to occur.

Our Council is proud to be part of the Coastcare partnership, alongside the Waikato Regional Council (WRC), the Department of Conservation (DOC) and iwi, working in with Forest & Bird NZ and ratepayer groups to protect and restore our coast.

Work involves building access ways, controlling pest plants and animals, installing signs, community education and monitoring beaches for changes or problems that need attention.

Dune planting days happen frequently across the district and if you want to get involved with a planting day near you, please contact tanya.patrick@tcdc.govt.nz

Find out more about our Coastcare partnership here

Try our CoastSnap station at Brophys Beach

If you're out and about near the northern end of Brophys Beach in Whitianga, check out our new 'CoastSnap' station and be part of our community beach monitoring.

The station has a cradle to put your smartphone in and take a photo of the beach. Images can then be uploaded to a website (details at the station) and used to create a time series of coastline changes at the beach, which will help us measure that change.

The CoastSnap station at Brophys Beach is a trial and we may look to introduce this to other sites next year.

Get snapping!

Coromandel coast summer survey out now

We’ve launched a survey to find out how our residents and visitors value and use the iconic Coromandel coast.

The Coromandel Coast Summer Survey takes no more than 10 minutes to complete online and asks questions about the activities people do on our coast (eg surfing, swimming, boating, hiking, gathering shellfish or dog walking), their thoughts on coastal hazards and sea level rise and where they go for information on coastal hazards and risks.

This information is important for our Council as we are underway with our Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) Project, which is all about developing resilient coastal communities.

Find out more about the survey in our media release here.

Stay informed about our SMP project at tcdc.govt.nz/coastal

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