The Waikawa Beach fore-dune environment hosts a number of plants endemic to this area, such as Spinifex and Pingao, which help stabilise the dunes against wind and storm erosion. It's also a favourite nesting area for some local and migrating birdlife, so providing plant cover for them hopefully keeps them out of harms way. The removal of pest plants such as Marram, Lupin, Pampas, Blackberry, Tropical Horseweed and Coastal Sea Wattle is also vitally important part of the work we all do.​

There are a number of Horizons Regional Council water quality monitoring sites on the Waikawa Stream. The North Manakau Road site regularly records the lowest bovine E.Coli reading in the region, but by the time the same water reaches the the site at the Waikawa footbridge, less than 10km downstream, it records the highest. Not only is our awa highly polluted with E.Coli, but some of our groundwater is also contaminated with high Nitrate levels.​​

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