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This Week’s Issue

A Tale of Two Spits

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Written by

Trevor Ammundsen

Published on

January 13, 2026

Taputapuatea Spit which forms a significant portion of the Buffalo Beach.

Taputaputea Spit 1961.

OPINION

The first tale

It was reported in mid-December that a Tasman based environmental trust, The HealthPost Nature Trust, announced that they were to commence building a 4 km long predator fence at the base of Farewell Spit. Their goal is to protect the Farewell Spit and to create a safe environment for seabirds to breed again along both cliffs and dunes.

Farewell Spit is located at the northwestern tip of the South Island and at 35 km of length is New Zealand’s longest sand spit. The HealthPost Nature Trust was formed in 2017 with the goal of protecting this spit, recognising that a sand spit is as much a part of nature as places such as bushland, mangrove swamp, mountain range or wetland. They are a group that is local to that area and have a vested interest in its natural preservation.

Sand offers some of nature’s stunning features; sand spits such as Farewell Spit, but also sand dunes do, such as the spectacular Hokianga sand dunes and the myriad of beautiful sand beaches that this country is blessed with. The efforts of the HealthPost Nature Trust are to be encouraged and supported; we wish them success in their endeavours. This is the tale of the first spit, a tale of hope and positivity.

Tale of the second spit

The spit that is the subject of the second tale unfortunately does not currently offer much hope or positivity. That spit is in Whitianga and is the Taputapuatea Spit which forms a significant portion of the Buffalo Beach. The attached photo, taken in 1961, shows the extent of the Taputapuatea Spit and shows that its nature is one of sand, not bushland. Far from being preserved as a natural piece of nature it is being changed by a “conservation” group that is not a local group, they are the national Forest and Bird Society who seem to have an aim of changing nature to fit their belief of what nature should look like. To me they seem to be a gardening club.

Taputaputea historically a sand spit

Captain Cook in his journals in 1796 wrote that the area (the Taputapuatea Spit and surroundings) was a barren piece of land, devoid of plant life of any sort. Despite this history the Forest and Bird Society stated (in their 2015 plan) that a desired outcome was “to establish coastal vegetation sequences that would have occurred prior to human settlement”. As the land was a sand spit when Captain Cook arrived the Forest and Bird Society appears to be accusing local Maori of clear felling the area before Cook arrived, and creating the spit by their efforts. I believe this suggestion is just balderdash and that the spit was created by nature. The naming of their project as a “Restoration” project is false and is used as an excuse for them to reshape a lovely piece of nature into another image, as that is what they would prefer.

The Council at the time gave them permission to proceed with this gardening project with assurances that no large trees were to be grown which would ruin the vistas available from this area. As anyone who passes this area can see these assurances do not appear to have been worth much and the spit is being transformed from its natural state into a scrub land. The removal of the trees and shrubs that make up this transformation is a matter that has been taken up with the Community Board.

The question may be asked “Why worry about it, what is wrong with a few trees?” Firstly we should worry about it as the Taputapuatea Spit makes up almost half of the land that is Buffalo Beach and by continuing with the present path, we are effectively giving away that land to a gardening club. With the Buffalo Beach Reserve often taken up with events such as markets, sporting, car or cultural events, it is important that we keep the spit available for uses such as beach sports (surfing, kite riding etc), family beach use, picnicking and so on. This is especially so if the use of the reserve is to be developed further for concerts etc. During such events the public still need somewhere to go if they are to enjoy Buffalo Beach. Secondly there is nothing wrong with trees in their natural place but to have their growth killing off one piece of nature purely to indulge what is not a natural element of nature for that particular area is spending resources foolishly.

Some trees could be left on the spit, provided the lower branches are kept thinned so that the views are not impeded, and these would offer some shade to the public. But we do not need another forest, the Coromandel has heaps of these already.

Probably the main difference in these tales of two spits is that one is driven by locals who wish to protect the nature in their area whereas ours appears to be driven by a national organisation who wishes to impose their vision of nature onto our area. It is time this stopped and the Community Board took over the management of the Taputapuatea Spit and invited the locals to participate.