Save the Okura Estuary
Auckland is a strange old place ..
We are desperately short of housing (and what we do have is severely affordable), yet people balk at having denser housing in “their backyard.”
One thing I am completely certain of is that there will always be housing built in areas that people would prefer they weren’t.
I recall one afternoon I was running at Long Bay Regional Park along the Coastal Track. The section beyond Granny’s Bay is an out and back so you tend to see the same people out on the trail for the entire duration you are on it. On my return journey I walked along a section of single track on the coastal side behind an elderly gentleman who also happened to be a volunteer at the Park.
He explained (after I expressed amazement that he walks the entire length of the track each day) that most of the volunteers liked to stick close to the car park but he enjoyed walking to the far end of the park and tending the grounds out there. He went onto say that their most recent planting day was because developers were building houses right on the park boundary and they hoped that the newly planted trees would one day help screen the housing off.
To be fair, there isn’t that much of a view on that side of the park – but running beside a row houses isn’t usually what someone goes to a Regional Park for. Although what makes me sadder than the fact that they are building houses on the boundary, is that they’ll probably be more of those big “fancy” houses (you find at Long Bay) which the majority of us can’t afford anyway.
I also noticed the first time I ran the Okura Bush Walkway that they were developing the land next to it, quite frankly you couldn’t help but notice with the racket of the earth moving equipment shattering the usual silence, however what I think separates developing Long Bay vs Okura is that Long Bay Regional Park doesn’t house the wildlife that is found at the Okura Estuary so in this instance I’m standing my ground (or ín this case the dotterels ground) and I’ve signed the petition to Save the Okura Estuary.
I can’t say that I’m the most educated person on the entire subject, but I’m pretty sure the flimsy string “boundaries” that currently protect the bird’s nesting sites aren’t going to provide the amount of protection needed should the area directly behind it become densely populated, making the foreshore far more accessible that it is at the moment.
Please take the time to give the petition a read over (and a signature if you are that way inclined).
Till next time
