Coastal Caretaker

Perching himself on a wooden bench on the beach, John Tawharu takes a quiet moment in his happy place.

A smile forms on his face as his eyes drift over the dunes. Like a proud father, he watches as hundreds of native spinifex and pingao plants dance in the breeze, tolerating the salty sea air and shifting sands.

John, 60, feels a deep sense of responsibility to these plants because it is through his mahi that they are there today. For the last three decades, he’s helped restore dunes as part of Coast Care, a coastal restoration programme that aims to restore and protect the sand dunes along the Bay of Plenty beaches.

In essence, he is a superhero of the sand dunes, a kaitiaki of the coastline.

“I do feel like I own it in some ways because I have been involved in planting all of it along here,” he says as he waves his hand over the Omanu Beach dunes.

“I am one of a group of kaitiaki, and I am proud of that.”

The beach is in the Tawharu whanau’s blood. It is not nearly midday and John has been for a surf and is already planning another.

A street back from the beach is where he has lived for 30 years and where his children, Elin and Jonas Tawharu, learned to surf. The surfing siblings have represented New Zealand at the ISA World Junior Surf Championship, with Elin achieving a bronze medal in Azores, Portugal.

“We are a surfing family,” John says. “We just love it.”

John’s connection to the coastline has been fundamental to his interest in helping Coast Care since its inception.

As the programme – which is co-funded by Toi Moana Bay of Plenty Regional Council, Western Bay of Plenty District Council, Tauranga City
Council, Whakatāne District Council, Ōpōtiki District Council, and Department of Conservation – celebrates its milestone 30th anniversary this year, so too does John.

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John is a founding member of Coast Care, first volunteering when he was teaching at Tahatai Coast School in Pāpāmoa and working alongside coastal restoration specialist Greg Jenks.

Back then, John says there was a lot of erosion in Pāpāmoa and sand banks were deteriorating.

He would educate the primary school pupils about the impacts on the beach and remembers surveying the artificial surf reef at Mount Maunganui and trying “unsuccessfully” to grow spinifex from seed.

“They are really hard to grow,” he says.

After five years at Tahatai Coast School, John applied for a job at Omanu School where he would spend the next 26 years teaching.

Under John’s guidance, Omanu School pupils have learned new skills and knowledge about planting plants, sand dune buffer systems and connecting to their whenua.

Every winter for 26 years, John and Coast Care stalwart and “legend” Chris Ward (who retired in 2022) would take about three classrooms to the beach.

“We would walk to the beach and spend an hour planting,” John says. “Sometimes, we would have about 90 kids at one time.”

John says he loved to watch the children learn everything from how to hold a spade and what bugs lived at the beach, to how their tiny plant would grow to become an important native sand-binding grass in New Zealand.

“They were developing that amazing feeling of becoming kaitiaki of the beach. That feeling of, ‘I planted this plant, so I will now look after it’. Kids would call plants by name.”

In its 30 years, a total of 29,975 volunteers who care about the coastal environment – including beach-side residents like John, casual beach users, and schools – have given nearly 66,880 hours to the programme.

John estimates of those nearly 30,000 volunteers, he has helped more than 4500 children get involved.

After last year stepping down from full-time teaching to work part-time, John was awarded a certificate for his long-standing dedication to Coast Care.

Tears form in John’s eyes as he remembers accepting the award from Bay of Plenty Regional Council and Tauranga City Council dignitaries at the special ceremony at Karewa Reserve.

“It is quite moving for me,” he says.

John has represented New Zealand in rugby and softball, and has received many teaching accolades in his lifetime because, in his words, he was good at it. But when it comes to conservation, he gets emotional.

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“The passion and the work behind the scenes go unnoticed because I just do it,” he says.

“I get a sense of fulfillment out of it, so you don’t expect anyone else to notice, but they did.”

Using one of the wooden posts as his marker, John knows exactly how much the dunes have been restored, as he points to where they once were a few decades ago – a good 20 to 30m towards the water.

“The planting is phenomenal,” he says. “The progress is fascinating to see the sand dunes grow year after year. To see that growth in the last 30 years is really rewarding.”

Admiring the dunes just a stone’s throw from his home, John says he is proud of what he has achieved with the help of the local primary school children.

Not only has the programme helped youngsters learn about the importance of dune restoration, but, he says, it has helped get them out of the classroom, away from electronics, and into the fresh air.

“It is vital that young people have a strong bonding with where they are from,” he says.

“It is fulfilling to contribute to nature and the community around you. It doesn’t matter if kids plant one or 10. It just matters that they planted a plant,” John says as he gently runs his fingers through the bright green grass stalks of a freshly-planted patch of pingao and spinifex.

Like anything good in the world, it will take time – likely years – for the volunteers who planted these native grasses to see the impacts they will have on the dune ecosystem.

It is rewarding, he says, to see adults walk along the beach and point to the plants they put in the ground as pupils themselves.

“Giving people the opportunity to give back is very fulfilling,” he says. “It is having a sense of belonging, purpose and ownership. It is exhilarating.”

Coast Care regional coordinator Rusty Knutson says the programme has been successful predominantly because local communities have a deep emotional connection with their beaches.  

“We’re very lucky to live in a region, which is home to some of New Zealand’s best beaches, something I think our residents are very proud of.

“When you feel pride in your place, there’s a sense of wanting to look after it. This is where Coast Care really resonates with people because it’s a tangible way to do your part.”

In fact, he says, in its 2023 Beach User Survey, 92 per cent of respondents considered native dune plants and wildlife to be at the top of their list when it comes to the value that beaches can bring to local communities.

Looking back, Rusty agrees with John that the coastal environment is changing.

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“Giving people the opportunity to give back is very fulfilling, It is having a sense of belonging, purpose and ownership. It is exhilarating.”

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“In recent years, we have seen increased frequency and magnitude of storm events, which often leads to dune and beach erosion, and community consternation.

“From a programme perspective, this has meant we have made a deliberate choice to focus more on erosion mitigation and restoration than perhaps we would have liked, as opposed to a more balanced approach of erosion management and biodiversity.”

With the changes becoming more visible, more and more people are putting their hands up to help play their part in its protection.

Rusty says Coast Care hosts roughly 3000 volunteers per winter planting season, mostly from either schools and corporates, and for different reasons.

For schools, one of the most important innovations delivered by the programme has been the development of its Life’s a Beach video series and associated support materials.

“These resources make it easy for schools to incorporate volunteering on the beach into their normal curricular activities, plus our restoration coordinators are adept at making the whole event fun for the children – these events often finish with some beach play time.”

When it comes to the corporates, Coast Care’s restoration coordinators have been working closely with local businesses, to forge connections and tailor events to suit their specific needs.

These events often consist of a short educational session on how beach systems work, and what plants and wildlife live there, followed by 1.5hrs planting, weeding or fertilising, and kai on the beach.

This approach, Rusty says, has contributed to lifting the overall involvement of the number of corporate volunteers.

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“We try to make every event fun. I also think that many businesses now realise the benefits to their business productivity from this type of volunteering activity. Some of them volunteer more than once per season.”

The programme’s biggest challenge is funding all the work along the 156km of open coastline it needs to do to restore this for future generations.

“We would dearly like a long-term and significant sponsor (or sponsors) to join the programme, to ensure we can continue to meet the needs of our community,” Rusty says.

One of the biggest wins has been the long history of collaboration between the region’s coastal councils and Department of Conservation.

“That is, of course, alongside seeing so many of our community coming out to help year after year for a mostly winter programme (plants have to be planted in winter to maximize survivability in this harsh environment), and the change that we can so clearly see in our beaches.”

Looking forward, Rusty says the Coast Care programme is here to stay another 30 years.

“It ticks all of the boxes: Biodiversity enhancement, coastal resilience, infrastructure and housing protection, community spirit, and the education of current and future generations.

“Not only is it one of the longest running environmental programmes in the Bay of Plenty, it’s also one of the best value for money.”

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Words by Zoe Hunter
Photography by ilk