Environment – Careless summers

For some New Zealanders, summer means a trip to the bach at the beach. Sometimes the “bach” is a whole house, more flash than those many other Kiwis call home. Perched in scenic locations that were once wildlife refuges or fragile landforms like sandspits, beaches or scenic headlands, these settlements can sit almost empty in winter and are full to overflowing when the holidays hit. People escape their suburban lives, spend hot hours stuck in traffic to join the seasonal community in a substitute suburbia in a beachside location. Sleepy seaside villages become heaving towns. They come complete with boats, jets skis, sea doughnuts, boards, fins and snorkel or scuba gear. They may bring the Christmas tree and gifts, family friends and the pet dog.

People build sand castles, swing in pohutukawa trees, take shade where they can find it. We might envy the next person’s boat, body or bach. We might even envy other people’s apparent private beaches. We might wish we had a beach to ourselves – or delight in the children playing in the shallows or in other cultures adopting Kiwi ways of summer.

Bikinis, Speedos (undies?) and other togs are paraded in states of usually unacceptable undress. Sunburn and sand are de rigueur. Double cab utes are driven along the sand to make picnicking easier, to launch boats, to avoid car separation anxiety disorder. There are parties and campfires on the beach.

As night falls or the tide ebbs or the season ends, the remains of the sunny day are left. Footprints in the sand, plastic wrappers, odd jandals, socks, undies and togs. There are fishing lines, old hooks and nets. Fish “frames” (skeletons after the fish have been filleted), as well as whole undersized fish lie to waste. Birds peck over cold fish and chip wrappers, bins spill their rubbish. Nature is left with the haunting memory of peoples’ happy summer day.

We pack up our belongings, lug them over the dunes, or to the nearby car, empty sand from our clothes, collect a special leaf or shell as a memento from the day. We nurse our sunburn (“but I applied sunscreen!”), we look forward to the next trip to the beach – tomorrow?

Beaches are profoundly who we are and what we do in summer. But are we kind to these fragile, beautiful habitats, homes to liminal species on the edge? Will our sandspits survive development? Will our starry night skies behold the same universal wonder with stray light from streets and housing? Will the penguins, oyster catchers, dotterels and gulls withstand the pressure – the rubbish, the food depletion, the entanglement in discarded fishing lines and legal set nets? Will our fish stocks survive the intense fishing effort? Will places of beauty and solace, peace and quiet, ever be the same as they were in our memories of those summer days?