WHAT motivates a small community group to take on a battle of Biblical proportions? David meets Goliath when Save the Point go head to head with the corporate and local government backers of the Marine Education Centre. Aaron Watson talks to Save the Point spokesman Nick Dryden.

Nick Dryden describes himself as a practical man. He likes to work with his hands as well as his brain.

Dryden has been a fisherman, a diving instructor and fisheries management training instructor. He plants native trees as part of the Oku Group, which is revegetating sections of the South Coast. He is also an active sculptor.

So for him to join a group taking on the combined might of the Wellington City Council, corporate backers including Infratil, and a determined Marine Education Centre Trust, (at a cost of some hundreds of thousands of dollars) seems out of character.

With such determined and high-powered forces arraigned against them, surely Save the Point’s battle to keep Te Raekaihau Point free of development is a lost cause?

No so, says Dryden. He has seen it all before, against equally formidable odds, and won.

Two decades ago, the Oku Group fought tooth and to nail stop Fletcher Challenge and the council going ahead with a planned subdivision on the hills to the west of Island Bay. The cause was of national significance as the outcome established the protection of ridgelines and hilltops.

It was an unpleasant fight that lasted for six years. But the group were strengthened by the bullying tactics used against them, he says.

At a mediation meeting where Oku were prepared to consent to a reduced scale of development, one of their wives was told bluntly by a lawyer that if costs were awarded against the community group, the developers would have no hesitation in selling her house, Dryden says.

"That sort of bullying tactic made us angry. We had gone into the mediation prepared to compromise on 30 houses – after that we offered three.

"We fought for six years through to the High Court – and we won. That was a trailblazing decision, the first protected ridge. The Oku area is now a wonderful reserve often lauded by the council as a wonderful community asset."

Twenty years later, he says the proposed aquarium as an issue of similar national importance. The right of communities to protect their unspoiled natural environment, in line with policies developed through the consultation process over the District Plan, is at stake.

"A building of this size, as a discretionary activity, is anomalous with the District Plan. This is a national issue. Nothing is sacred after this."

Save the Point is made up mostly of South Coast residents, but also has contacts nationwide with like-minded people. Communities sometimes know better how to look after their area than bureaucrats, he says.

Five years ago the council decided that the dunes at Island Bay would be enhanced by a boardwalk. A bulldozer went through the last stand of pingoa [native grass] between Karori Rock and Eastbourne.

The Oku Group, some of whom are also in Save the Point, plant more than 5000 natives each year on the Island Bay dunes and in the Oku Reserve.

"We are not NIMBY whiners out here. We plant more plants than the council."

Save the Point want to see the coast managed to its best potential, he says. And that means supporting appropriate development, such as the new Kupe/Kevin Smith Marine Reserve.

Dryden supports the reserve, even though it will prevent him diving for kaimoana behind the island in Island Bay, where he has taken all his children.

"We have been doing environmental advocacy on the South Coast for 20 years. I have never seen them [aquarium proponents Judy Hutt and Victor Anderlini] at an environmental meeting unless they are pushing their barrow."

Dryden has been fighting the
aquarium proposal for nearly a decade, since the development was first mooted by then Mayor Mark Blumsky.

"I first made a submission in 1998, when Mayor Blumsky came out to Island Bay school hall and told us he was going to give us Variation 18 on the South Coast. It was going to become the South of France."

The plan was to make the area a major tourist destination with a surf reef (project currently stalled), a diving attraction (the F69 frigate, which broke up during the first major storm after it was sunk) and a national aquarium.

Dryden opposed the F69 Frigate sinking as he thought the seas on the South Coast were too powerful.

"I ran tuna fishing boats in the Pacific. I know what the sea can do."

But he doesn’t oppose the idea of a Marine Education Centre. Save the Point are just trying to protect a unique natural resource, Te Raekaihau point, he says.

"We are not opposed to marine education. Nor do we bear any animosity to the developers. But it is ridiculous to build a giant building on untouched coastline in order to teach people how to respect it.

"There are so many alternative sites. Their refusal to consider other sites has alienated the community which would have backed them."

The upcoming appeal of the
Marine Centre’s resource consent could cost Save the Point up to $100,000. Money is raised through calendar sales, postcards, T shirts and donations. Members of local band Fat Freddy’s Drop gave $3000 and band members have agreed to perform in a benefit concert in March. An anonymous donor covered outstanding legal bills from the consent hearing.

As a sculptor, Dryden has turned his art to the cause, erecting Wind Eater sculptures on Te Raekaihau Point and cows fashioned from kelp on the South Coast, mounted on washed up pieces of the F69 frigate.

He wants such public stunts to draw attention to the issue, which is a much closer battle than people think, he says.

A first resource consent hearing on the aquarium was tied. Only the withdrawal and re-submission of the proposal to a second hearing kept the plan alive. This annoyed Save the Point.

"We understood that if there was no outcome the motion was denied. That was a gross abuse of the process."

While it has been sold to the public as education, the aquarium is backed by council as a tourist attraction. Neither requires it to be built on Te Raekaihau Point, Dryden says. The South Coast is also a recognised high-risk tsunami and storm surge area.

"With global warming councils are thinking about ways to retreat from these areas. This plan involves excavating down to less than a metre above sea level.

"For the cost of this consent you could train every school kid in new Zealand to dive and buy them the gear. Then they could learn everything from the marine reserve instead of looking at sad fish in tanks. They will spend millions, but they are doomed to fail."

Save the Point are sure that, despite the difference in resources (council alone has given the Marine Centre Trust more than $500,000 and is considering a $7 million interest free loan) they will win this battle, just as the Oku Group did decades ago.

"We have been painted as professional activists who hop from issue to issue. We are just informed locals who care about our area. We are not dying in ditches over this. We just give it our best and put forward our best case.

"We are very confident we have a good case. Once we get away from politically appointed arbitrators and get in front of a proper judge, we will win."