Pakiri locals fight against plans to take their sand for Auckland beaches

The fate of Pakiri’s sand is again at the centre of a fight between sand mining companies who want to ship it to Auckland, and locals who want to keep it on their beach, Newshub reports. Sharley Haddon thinks almost 100 years of sand mining in the waters off Pakiri beach, north of Auckland, has caused the shore’s sand and the dunes to slump into the holes and trenches left by dredging. Three consent applications are lodged with Auckland Council, and depending on which ones are approved, anywhere between 2 to 6.3 million cubic metres of Pakiri’s sand could be taken from coastal waters over the next 35 years.