A Forest and Bird Warkworth Project
About Us
Snells Shoreline Conservation Community enables and assists the community by learning and implementing methods that will improve outcomes for the threatened shoreline ecosystems.
These are critical to the survival of native flora and fauna (especially birds and sea life), and the community’s enjoyment of the shoreline.
Our coasts, beaches and shorebirds are irreplaceable.
Let’s save them.
“If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.” – William Arthur Ward
Snells Shoreline Conservation Community was founded in 2021 by a small group of volunteers living at Snells Beach.
Our Mission
To seek greater understanding of the risks and challenges faced by our shoreline and the native life that relies on it.
To develop a range of educational activities that share good practice on shoreline eco-systems and native life protection in Snells Beach.
To provide reliable fact-based information and research to inform users what behaviours can help in the protection of the shoreline and its life in Snells Beach.
To engage the local community as role models, eco-system custodians, and for social change at Snells Beach.
To liaise and work with others such as; Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust (NMST); SBRRA; Auckland Council; Rodney Local Board; DOC and Forest and Bird to protect our shoreline and birdlife in Snells Beach.
Background
It is well recognised that shorelines of New Zealand Aotearoa, including Snells Beach, are under threat and at high risk of irreversible damage. Climate change, urbanisation, pollution and the destruction of local ecosystems and its surrounding ecology impact on the quality of our shoreline and our unique flora and fauna.
Recent Government figures show that increased urbanisation has seen natural habitat for the shoreline birdlife of Aotearoa decrease substantially. This, alongside the increasing risks of mammalian predators, including our much-loved cats and dogs, and reduced food sources as a result of rising sea temperature, has seen 90 percent of all seabirds, 80 percent of shorebirds, and 26 percent of native marine mammals being either threatened with, or at risk of, extinction (Ministry for the Environment 2019).
Tackling such problems requires international and national action. It is also well recognised that local people can make a positive contribution in helping to protect and improve their local shorelines for future generations.
This belief underpins the aims and purpose of the Snells Shoreline Conservation Community. As a group, it wants to operate as a force of change that helps and enables the local community to protect and improve the shoreline of Snells Beach.
Tautoko – Waiho i te toipoto, kaua I te toiroa.
Support – Let us keep close together, not far apart.