An offer on the Abel Tasman beach has been accepted.
It’s been a long wait for the thousands of Kiwis who got behind the campaign to buy the beach for New Zealand.
Beach campaigner Duane Major announced the good news this morning. The deal was confirmed at 10.58pm yesterday, he said.
Kiwis pledged $2,278,171.09, and Major said the purchase made it over the line with help from the Government and another ‘‘major donor’’.
The philanthropist approached the campaign last week with a ‘‘no strings attached’’ offer, but asked to remain anonymous.
Public access to the beach was ‘‘guaranteed’’, Major said.
(The Nelson Mail, Wednesday, February 24th, 2016)
Champagne, beer and a speedo run to the water were the order of the evening for those overjoyed that a beautiful beach will forever belong to all New Zealanders.
The efforts of nearly 40,000 Kiwis to purchase an Abel Tasman beach on the public’s behalf were celebrated by a few locals, tourists, and TV3 at a party on the Awaroa inlet last night.
About 40 people sank their toes into publicly-owned sand, took a dip in warm waters and toasted to the success of the crowdfunding campaign started by Duane Major and Adam Gard’ner last month.
Confirmation of the beach’s purchase was received Wednesday morning.
Paul Williams works for a local water taxi company and comes to Awaroa ‘‘about twice a day’’. He donated $1000 to the public’s tender.
Darryl Wilson of tourism company Wilson’s Abel Tasman said the day was one to enjoy and that ‘‘more shallow thoughts’’ about how the beach would now be maintained could wait.
Wilson, who runs the nearby Meadowbank Homestead, is an eighth-generation local in the area. ‘‘It’s our ancestral birthplace. Our family have come and gone from this place but always it’s a place in our hearts,’’ he said.
(The Nelson Mail, Thursday, February 25th, 2016)
The section of Days Track destroyed by a slip during the December 2011 flood is to finally be rebuilt – but residents are not getting exactly what they sought.
They wanted the Nelson City Council to spend $500,000 to reinstate the concrete path between Moana Ave and Grenville Tce.
It sits on the longstanding Tahunanui Slump, a large area of built-on hillside that has been moving at 7-8 millimetres a year.
Instead the council’s works and infrastructure committee has recommended that $430,000 be spent replacing it with a gravel pathway.
The slip – one of hundreds in the city and district caused by the flood – damaged the concrete steps and path beyond repair.
Water and sewage pipes were also hit.
Yesterday’s council committee meeting was addressed by Days Track Group member Kelly Atkinson, who had seven supporters with her.
The historic track was beloved by Nelsonians across the region, Atkinson said, and there was an urgent need to fix it on health and safety grounds, with residents living in terror of the damage another freak storm could bring.
The path was used by everyone from people in their 90s to families with small children, Atkinson said.
(The Nelson Mail, Friday, February 26th, 2016)
A German exchange student who has completed an internship with Project Mohua says she felt like ‘‘Sherlock Holmes’’ by the end of her trip spent in the muddy end of a swampy Golden Bay wetland.
For the past semester 23-yearold Steffi Kunstle has spent her time away from the classroom trapping, mapping, planting and monitoring the diverse wildlife throughout some of the bay’s most luscious spots.
Kunstle did much field work in Mangarakau Swamp on the West Coast such as setting trap lines and bird monitoring. She also helped GPS mark all the trap locations.
(The Nelson Mail, Friday, February 26th, 2016)
Many water permit holders on the Waimea Plains have indicated they will buy into the proposed Waimea Community Dam.
Irrigator company Waimea Community Dam Ltd ( WCDL) needed permit holders to indicate they would buy 2700 hectares of irrigation rights under its funding model for the project. In November, it sent information on the model to permit holders and included a one-page survey. One of the survey questions asked how many hectares of irrigation rights the recipient would purchase based on the WCDL proposal.
WCDL chairman Murray King said the irrigator buy-in undertakings received covered about 2800ha.
The WCDL funding model for the proposed multimillion-dollar dam in the Lee Valley indicates a per-hectare cost of $4500, which would raise $12 million with a 2700ha buy-in from irrigators. Another $8m is tipped to come from Crown Irrigation Investments Ltd, which the WCDL model assumes will underwrite 1800ha.
(The Nelson Mail, Saturday, February 27th, 2016)
“When the eagles are silent,
the parrots begin to jabber.”
- Winston Churchill.