Dear Editor, The Wednesday 28 June headline story, ‘$400k to be spent on coastal and foreshore erosion research’.

It is good to hear National Environment Service director Halatoa Fua say the study was “a direct response to the recent king tide surge in 2022. “

The previous NES director ignored the calls to look at one method of foreshore protection that has proven effective, including in the 2022 tide surge.

Perhaps the NES and others find it difficult to comprehend that the effective method is ‘invisible’.

The invisible rock protection (pictured) was installed years ago on family land in Tikioki, by the lessee of the property known as Rumours Luxury Villas and Spa.

The method is simple - the beachfront is dug out, a thick mating is placed in the bottom of the excavation, minimum one-tonne rocks are placed on top, and finally the sand is replaced.

The beach looks exactly as it did before the installation.

Maybe takes a few more rocks than would have been used for a conventional rock ‘wall’ that saves one property, but destroys the property on each side when there are big waves.

A picture of these rocks, taken after the 2022 surge, shows that they saved the tourist units, as they have done before.

All that was needed was to make minor repairs to the deck and then wait a bit for the natural forces to put the sand back and then a bit of a ‘top-up’ from collecting the sand that had been pushed around.

Now, since this invisible rock protection has provided all the research ever necessary, perhaps the $400k can be paid to the landowners who allowed this experiment to take place on family land, or, better yet, use the $400k to start installing invisible rock walls in front of our most vulnerable elderly landowners who are losing their land for lack of money to install protection.

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