‘Planning errors cause of much coastal damage’

Press, 29 July 1978, Page 3

‘Planning errors cause of much coastal damage’

Man’s haste to develop the coastline, and the planning procedures which allow him to do so, were attacked at Nelson yesterday by Dr R, M. Kirk, senior lecturer in geography at Canterbury University.

Dr Kirk was giving a paper on coastal sand movements to a symposium with the theme “Between the Tides,” organised by the Nature Conservation " Council, the Press Association reports. “We have a large, diverse coastal land resource, and in common with many other areas of the world’s coastlines, much of it is naturally eroding or in a delicate state of stability,” Dr Kirk said. Few large sections of the New Zealand coast could be shown to be developing, he said.

New Zealand had not only failed to learn from the mistakes of other societies, but had also shown a readiness to multiply various problems.

“The same fundamental planning errors can easily be demonstrated in a range of coastal subdivisions, dating from a decade and more ago to those recently established,” he said. The most harmful of the man-induced causes of shoreline erosion were extraction of aggregate from beaches and the development or removal of foredunes, — especially where coastal stability was tenuous before work began. “Many costly and difficult problems have already been created as a result of inadequate understanding of the process governing coastal stability,” Dr Kirk said. The recent coastal erosion on the Kaikoura coast had once again highlighted the dynamic and changeable nature of the coast and had thrown into sharp focus the continuing lack of adequate planning for the hazards inherent in people’s living along the coast.

Dr Kirk said that rural counties, which administered most of the coast, had proven inadequate to develop coastal land soundly or to

resist the demand for everexpanding subdivisions. “Central Government must bear the responsibility for handing local authorities the responsibility for the coastal zone, and for providing subsidies for certain categories when things go wrong, and for leaving a substantial void in guidance, funding and technical expertise between the two until quite recently.” Opening the symposium, the chairman of the Nature Conservation Council (Dr Carolyn Burns, of Dunedin) drew attention to New Zealand’s coastal zone. “It is one of our most valued and most valuable natural resources,” she said. “However, simply because New Zealand is well-en-dowed with coastline and because, superficially, the resource appears to be free, it is very easy to have an attitude of impudence towards the coastal zone,” she said. “This impudence is reflected in the sources of stress and abuse on our coasts today. “It should be the aspiration of all New Zealanders to eliminate these sources of stress and abuse,” Dr Burns said.