Pakiri sand miner offers a last-minute concession

At the very end of a weeks-long resource management hearing, dredging company McCallums has volunteered a reduction in sand volumes and a hike in royalties, Newsroom reports, as it attempts to get its licences to mine beach sand renewed. Now it’s up to Auckland Council to come to a decision. ‘Save our Sand’ anti-dredging protestors say 80 years of mining, despite the beach being identified as a marine “Significant Ecological Area”, has left the sea floor so decimated by repeated dredging it will take decades to restore.