By Kira Carrington, Local Democracy reporter
A quad-bike rider driving into the prohibited red zone after being confronted by council land and water team leader Peter Hamill. Photo: LDR / supplied
Marlborough mayor Nadine Taylor has condemned widespread flouting of the east coast vehicle bylaw as "ecological vandalism".
A new report on compliance with the controversial East Coast Vehicle Bylaw was presented to councillors at the Environment and Planning committee meeting last Thursday.
The report revealed that broken signs, embedded tyre tracks, and blatant disregard for the bylaw was a major threat to the unique environment and wildlife on the east coast beaches.
The bylaw, established in 2023, created red, yellow and green vehicle zones along the coast.
All vehicles are banned from red zones; yellow zones are restricted to all-terrain and utility-terrain vehicles like quad-bikes and side-by-sides; and all vehicles are allowed in the green zone.
Vehicle tracks at The Needles in 2024. Peter Hamill said many visitors drove on the beach for recreational reasons. Photo: LDR / supplied
But council's land and water team leader Peter Hamill said signs of recent vehicle use could be found at all monitoring sites, regardless of zone.
"We've utilised a set of posts through there by putting signs on each of the posts, so it's pretty clear that you shouldn't be driving past [them]," Hamill said.
"This has been regularly ignored."
Cameras placed along the beach recorded at least 156 vehicle passes, a pass meaning a return trip, from 11 December to 7 January, Hamill said.
Sand disturbance suggested visitors were not keeping to the 30kph speed limit in green and yellow zones.
Vehicle prohibition zones along the east coast under the East Coast Vehicles Bylaw. Photo: LDR / supplied
Council had received 73 reports of vehicle activity from locals through the Antenno app by the end of June, including vehicles becoming stuck in prohibited zones, driving in the vicinity of children, and wildlife disturbance.
"Around Christmas time... a ute got stuck down there and there was calls out for someone to come and help them pick it up," Hamill said.
He said he had come across a man riding a quad-bike in a red zone during routine monitoring. The man drove around the area on a regular basis, despite knowing it was a red zone.
" talked to the gentleman, said to him do you realise it's [a] prohibited zone past here, he went 'yes but I'd carry on anyway'," he said.
Vandalism of the signs was rife, Hamill said, with council needing to replace 36 signs that had been torn out or broken off.
Monitoring officers eventually moved to thicker posts with stays to keep them from being pulled out, but the vandalism continued.
"To get these posts out, it's not just someone walking along and pushing it two or three times and lifting it out," Hamill said.
"They're either putting a chain or a rope around them and pulling them out with a ute or going to a lot of effort to pull the posts out."
Hamill said the monitoring officers had discovered a pile of pulled out signs on a sand dune, which was "quite handy because we didn't have to buy new ones".
"[The monitoring officers] had a quick little game with some people there just going back and forth to see who would outlast [the other]."
The banded dotterel is one of many endangered native species that call the east coast sand dunes home. Photo: LDR / supplied
Driving on the beach could cause irreversible damage to ecologically critical species, Hamill said.
The east coat beaches boast Marlborough's largest sand dune area, and a major biodiversity hub.
Most notably, the dunes are home to the Kiwaia moth which can only be found on Marlborough's east coast and was previously thought to be extinct, and the banded dotterel, which lay their camouflaged eggs in the dunes.
Hamill said visitors mostly drove on the beach to do fishing and surf-casting, but some drove for recreation with doughnut tracks common along the coast.
Locals had laid out logs near Chancet Rocks that had managed to decrease the traffic in the area.
In 2023, local iwi Rangitāne o Wairau challenged the bylaw in court, claiming it violated their customary rights in the area. Their case was dismissed last year.
Councillor David Croad said the original purpose of the zones was to find a middle ground between environmental protection and honouring visitors' traditional access to the beaches.
The bylaw will be up for review this year, Croad said, with the report helping inform on what next steps the council would take to improve compliance.
Croad said it was important for the council to take a stand to protect the coast's unique environment, noting that the council had received criticism for not stopping human intervention in the Marlborough Sounds.
"I hope people realise the risk here in that review is that we could well and truly resort back to that original recommendation of banning the whole area."
Croad later told LDR that he didn't mean his statements as an indictment against all people using the beaches, and he acknowledged that some people were respecting the bylaw.
Taylor said it was up to the council to protect the environment for future generations.
"We want to be able to see dotterels on the beach in 30 years' time. [The birds] are not able to do anything about this. It is up to us to protect this environment."
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
