Sea Cleaners and Manukau Harbour Forum chair Jon Turner recently spent a morning in a hovercraft ferrying up and down the mudflats to remove tyres that had been used in old seawalls. They collected about 250 but there are thousands of them.

Sea Cleaners report the volume of rubbish removed from Auckland harbours is hundreds of thousands of litres, and it’s required almost 200,000 volunteer hours to remove it.

Turner says contamination and pollution were identified as significant issues at Forum wānanga that are to be extended to include more of the nine local boards along the harbour and the community groups they work with. “There were also concerns around a loss of vegetation in many areas along the harbour, and the impact of climate change, including rising sea levels and erosion,” he said.

Find out more about the Manukau Harbour Forum here.

Image: Auckland Council