Taking Back Our Beach

Living at Pāpāmoa, it's just a dream. It's a beautiful place. It's heaven on earth.

– Pāpāmoa resident Glenis Ashley describes her home turf, early in this excerpt

Ngāi Te Rangi and the other tribes, Ngāti Pūkenga and Ngāti Ranginui, describe ourselves as people of the moana. So everything that happens in the moana is happening to us.

– Te Rūnanga O Ngāi Te Rangi chair Charlie Tawhaio on the impact of the Rena disaster, in this excerpt

It's our beach. We're taking ownership.

– Cleanup volunteer Sue Behrens on helping the cause, in the trailer

The battle of the community against what they saw as floundering bureaucracy is a key theme . . . There were so many community heroes who came together to take back their power, and their beaches.

– Director Anton Steel on the power of community, Stuff, 21 May 2023

I don't think anybody, including ourselves, realised how big a deal it was gonna be until we got there that morning. The scene that unfolded when we arrived was indescribable. She was high and dry and grinding away on that reef.

– Sun Media owner Brian Rogers recalls first reporting on the shipwreck of the 'Rena', in this excerpt

I wasted no time in launching and getting out to the reef, hoping that it wasn’t a serious incident. Unfortunately, as history has played out, that wasn’t to be the case . . . The worldwide media, and even the national media, were slow for this to register. It was a day or two before it really kicked into gear, but when it did Tauranga was on the map for all the wrong reasons.

– Sun Media owner Brian Rogers describes reporting on the shipwreck of the 'Rena', Stuff, 16 September 2022