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Ninety Mile Beach is a popular walking destination and forms the first part of the Te Araroa track.
The dangerous free-for-all of careless driving on one of New Zealand's most iconic beaches could be set to come to an end.
A management plan being written for Northland's Te Oneroa-Ā-Tōhe/Ninety Mile Beach would look to ban cars "doing donuts" and other anti-social driving on the beach.
Te Oneroa-Ā-Tōhe Board chair Haami Piripi, from Te Rarawa iwi, said the plan was about bringing order to the beach.
Te Oneroa-ā-Tōhe Board chair Haami Piripi says the days of reckless destruction on Ninety Mile Beach are gone.
"At the moment, you just do whatever you like on the beach. Almost every year, someone gets killed doing a donut, or a child gets killed on a motorbike," he said.
"There's also environmental damage occurring at [shellfish] spawning time. There's a whole lot of activities that are mostly detrimental to the beach and its non-human residents."
Driving on Ninety Mile Beach has long been a concern for locals, as shown by this 2013 protest when Top Gear was filmed at the beach.
The iwi has the same powers as local government so any agreed ban could be policed in the same way bylaws are.
Ninety Mile Beach is also popular with tourists, with about 25 tour buses a day travelling on the beach.
Piripi said the iwi recognised tourism was the "goose that laid the golden egg" in Northland and they did not want to destroy it. However, he thought tour operators would be open to driving restrictions, such as not during shellfish spawning time.
Piripi said the days of driving carelessly on the beach, without thinking of the consequences, were over.
"One vehicle doing wheelies on the beach can destroy 10,000 toheroa or spat - those days are gone. We can't damage our resources like that any more," he said.
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Ninety Mile Beach is enjoyed by all sorts of vehicles, such as this gyrocopter flown by Grant Simpson.
The gathering of toheroa is still banned on Ninety Mile Beach, with the shellfish populations never recovering from industrial-scale gathering, which ran until 1982.
Each year, young toheroa are replanted on the beach, to help the population recover.
In a first for New Zealand, the management plan would also recognise the spiritual importance of the beach to Māori, who know it as "Te Ara Wairua", the spiritual pathway taken by the dead on the journey back to their ancient homeland.
"It's the first time a thing like that - that we can't see or touch - is being required to be protected. It's a big breakthrough for us, it acknowledges our beliefs and culture in a way that hasn't been done before," Piripi said.
Te Oneroa-Ā-Tōhe Board was set up through a Treaty of Waitangi settlement and has a unique even split of iwi and local government.
While not opposed to land next to the beach being developed - such as for housing - the board will be able to consider the environmental impact of any development, Piripi said.
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Kerikeri Cadets walk along Ninety Mile Beach for a beach clean-up.
Public feedback and information sessions will be held in July and August, ahead of a draft plan being released for public consultation in about a year's time. More information is available on its dedicated website.
NINETY MILE BEACH KEY FACTS
- Te Oneroa-Ā-Tōhe (The Long Beach of Tōhe) is named after a Māori chief Tōhe.
- The beach is of extreme importance to the five iwi of Te Hiku o te Ika (The Tail of the Fish) in the Far North.
- Situated on the west coast on the northernmost part of New Zealand, Ninety Mile Beach actually measures 88km (55 miles).
- Early European settlers thought the beach was 90 miles long because it took their horses three days to cross, and the horses normally travelled 30 miles a day. However, they did not take into account the slowness of traversing the soft sand.
