Jim Robinson - Restoring the Opotiki Dunes Trail

Volunteers have now bedded in around 20,000 plants along the Ōpōtiki Dunes Trail as part of an ambitious environmental restoration programme.

The area is part of the Motu Trails Cycleway in the Bay of Plenty, one of 22 Great Rides on The New Zealand Cycle Trail.

Jim Robinson on the dune trail.

Volunteers at the dunes

Eighty-nine-year-old Ron Campbell never misses a planting session.

Euphorbia in full bloom

Volunteers have been helping restore the dunes since 2014.

Tim cooking up a meal for volunteers

Volunteer Wayne O'Keefe

Volunteer Kieran Hickey

Euphorbia in full flower

Volunteers of all ages have been involved in the restoration.

Replanting the native species along the dunes started in earnest in 2014 as part of a wider biodiversity management plan to protect the fragile dune ecosystem.

The trial starts in Ōpōtiki and runs east for 9km parallel to the coast.

Jim Robinson, from the Motu Trails Charitable Trust, says the trial has been transformed from its previous degraded state.

“There was a bit of coast care work that was going on 10 years ago. So there was a bit of planting and a bit of weed control, but by and large, it was uncontrolled and there had been grazing.

“It was in a pretty degraded state environmentally. There were big patches of kikuyu, gorse, box thorn, lots of pampas, lots of wheat species. And there was some native stuff, but by and large, it was a pretty degraded environment, so it's completely transformed since then.”

About 20,000 plants have gone in since the regeneration project began, he says.

“So the whole coastal environment has transformed from this really degraded, you know scrubby sort of looking environment to one where it's much more like what it would have once looked like. Originally the back dunes would have had low, rugged bush covering, and it's returning to that kind of environment."

They concentrated on hardy, coast-loving natives, he says.

“The range of stuff that's been planted has gradually got whittled down into the proven performers really – ngaio, karo, cabbage trees, flaxes, lots of rushes and reeds a few pōhutukawa. So really, really tough stuff because it's a pretty harsh environment.”

Cycling the trial now is a whole different experience, he says.

“It's an awesome feeling to go along there, and especially when you look at some of the photos and you see what it was like, and you know, your memory obviously gets a bit blurred and then you go back to the photo file and Holy Moly it's just changed completely.”