AN ECO-WARRIOR WHO HELPED PROTECT THE BEST SURF BREAKS

Matthew Skellern, born in Wellington and brought up in Auckland, was a successful town planner and sportsman, and a member of the New Zealand Planning Institute and Surf Protection Society’s executive committees.

Matt was an incredibly dedicated, compassionate and perceptive student and practitioner of planning and resource management in New Zealand.

He helped developed a mentoring programme for young planners, and was completing his Masters degree on Creating Official Surfing Reserves in New Zealand when he took his life in May 2012.

Matt was a well-known identity amongst the surfing community as a keen surfer and passionate advocate for protecting the coastal environment. He was also New Zealand age-group baseball representative and coach.

With a Bachelor of Planning, Environmental from Auckland University, Matt first worked as a Coastal Consents Specialist for the former Auckland Regional Council. He was also a Policy Planner at the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and a Consents Planner for Major Projects with Auckland City Council.

Matt was the national representative for Young Planners at the New Zealand Planning Institute. “I chose planning as a career because I wanted to do something for the environment. People recognise the environmental mistakes of the past, and now we realise the importance of acting sustainably if we want to create a better future,” he wrote on his Auckland University profile.

In 2009, The Surfbreak Protection Society was preparing for the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (NZCPS) and was put in touch with Matt. He offered his planning skills and became one of the society’s expert witnesses to present evidence at the NZCPS hearing.

Matt then assisted the society on numerous campaigns, preparing evidence for hearings, notably the Te Arai and Aramoana cases, and writing submissions for Regional Plan reviews to roll out the protection for surf breaks, now cemented in the NZCPS.

In October 2010 Matt organised a very successful lecture on the protection of surf breaks at Auckland University sponsored by the NZ Planning Institute and the Coastal Society. He also wrote articles for surfing magazines, the Planning Quarterly and the Coastal News.

Buoyed by the success of the NZCPS that now provides for protection of surf breaks in New Zealand and developments overseas, such as the National Surfing Reserves in Australia and the World Surfing Reserves project, Matt went back to university to write his ground-breaking thesis.

Matt initiated research on current practices, planning processes and sustainable management for surf breaks. His published work called "Planning Approaches for the Management of Surf Breaks in New Zealand" was completed by colleagues Bailey Perryman and Shane Orchard, with oversight by Matt’s tutor Hamish Rennie, Senior Lecturer Environmental Management and Planning at Lincoln University.

The work received logistical and financial support from Auckland Council, The University of Auckland, Bay of Plenty Regional Council and Surfbreak Protection Society. The work assisted

local authorities with identifying issues and developing appropriate responses that avoid degradation of the integrity of surf breaks as unique features of the coastal environment.

Matt’s voluntary contributions to the movement for surf break protection were substantial in the short time he was given. The Surfbreak Protection Society said his spirit lives on through his accomplishments; Matt’s name is etched on every protected surf break in New Zealand.

REFLECTIONS OF A SISTER

He didn’t learn what a miracle he had accomplished

I was with Matt when he presented The Surfbreak Protection Society’s submission for the Auckland Regional Plan. I was sitting in the benches in a room in the Town Hall while Matt stood at the lectern in his Boss suit and proceeded to dazzle the councillors with his smooth and compelling presentation as to why a series of surf breaks in the Auckland region should be protected.

After his talk the councilors swarmed around him, keen to chat more. I was conscious of getting him out of the room fairly quickly just in case someone noticed his slightly manic behavior. But he so pulled it off, in his elevated state.

However, he didn’t learn what a miracle he had accomplished, He took his life before the regional legislation was put in place. In 2014 we (the Skellern family) learnt that Matt’s dream, his vision, had become a reality - 16 surf breaks were protected under the Auckland Plan.

Matt had talked about this possibility for years. He sat down with me and drew many pictures of the geography of the coastline and explained that to maintain the perfect swell required for a good surf break, the whole bay needed to be protected.

Matt wasn’t just advocating for this protection to ensure surfers had a good break. Matt knew that if he could get this legislation through, the whole local coastal environment would be protected right down to the little pipi. Matt knew what Kaitiakitanga (guardianship) meant, he understood the triple bottom line (planet, people, profit), and he was an undercover eco-warrior.

University professors and professionals connected with the Surfbreak protection movement grabbed the precedent Matt had generated through the Auckland Council, and forged similar legislation in many other Council districts throughout New Zealand.

The government is now funding research in to surfbreak protection in order to make informed decisions about whether they can sign off developments within these local coastal areas without affecting the surf break. This science has already prevented some commercial developments from occurring in protected areas.

Matt didn’t stop after the submission to the Auckland Council. He enrolled in a Masters of Planning with the University of Auckland where he focused on developing a tool kit for local councils to implement the new surfbreak protection policy.

He interviewed world leaders in this area and in late 2011 was off to present his new research at the inaugural Global Wave conference in Biarritz and San Sebastian. Matt was going places; he was intent on taking this movement to the world.

The problem was Matt had bipolar, and all this intense and exciting activity spun him in to a serious manic episode. He was deemed too unwell to present at the conference and instead had to watch the proceedings online from a hotel room in Portugal.

We, his family, were incredibly concerned and did all we could to get him back to New Zealand safely. He did it, but soon sunk in to a huge depression which he sadly never made it back from. He took his life in May 2012, the day after he filed for the second extension on his Masters thesis. He thought he wasn’t capable of realising his vision, his dream was shattered, and this was the last straw for him.

Ironically, Matt had already realised his vision, he just didn’t live long enough to know this.

My brother well and truly made a difference and left a legacy. He made a contribution to our whenua (land) and moana (sea) that will be felt for many years to come.

I also believe that with time, the precedent he created in New Zealand will inform international best practice.

Wish you were here to see it Bruv, but I gotta trust you are seeing it from above.

– Emma Skellern