Development and Application of Local Coastal Knowledge: Insights from New Zealand Surfers

Abstract

Through their accumulated experiences with coastal environments, surfers may be uniquely qualified as a source of local knowledge on surf breaks and wider coastal management topics. Despite popular associations between surfers and the environment, critical enquiries are needed to establish the scope and depth of surfers’ knowledge and the processes that may influence its development. In this study, we expected that relationships between surfers and the coastal environment would be highly variable and dependent upon several outside factors, including individual motivations and biases. This broad hypothesis was tested through an oral history study of 15 New Zealand surfers, which examined the development of coastal environment knowledge through surfing experiences and explored its applications to resource management in New Zealand. Surfers can develop a unique local knowledge of the coast that is often specific to their favourite locations but can also include regional insights obtained through site-scale comparisons. These may include relatively detailed observations that are typically difficult to detect or measure and that are primarily generated through sustained surfing experiences. Socio-cultural factors, including gender stereotypes, localism, equipment bias, and interaction with accessibility, were identified as key influences on individual motivations and knowledge generation contexts. This study argues that surfers’ perspectives are critical to informing management decisions in the coastal environment. Knowledge residing in the surfing community is dependent on individual associations with surf breaks, yet it can be harnessed across meaningful scales to inform coastal management. Moreover, the generation of local knowledge through surfing experiences adds to the societal benefits of protecting surf breaks.

1. Introduction

Local knowledge is developed through traditional cultural rules and norms, human and environmental interactions, and personal experiences [1]. The term local does not specifically refer to a geographical location but can include cultural contexts among groups of individuals that are characteristic of wider regions [2]. The development of local knowledge may be contrasted with the pursuit of positivist scientific knowledge, where it is frequently characterised as informal, tacit, lay, or personal [1]. However, proponents of local knowledge challenge the dominance of positivist knowledge in the formal processes and institutions charged with environmental management [3]. Potential benefits of local knowledge sources include their ability to capture human-environmental relationships and inform environmental and ecological challenges that are difficult to measure using other approaches [4].

As scarce and vulnerable resources, surf breaks have become a globally significant focus for natural resource management [5,6,7,8]. Herein, the term “surf break” refers to geographically explicit areas that support a range of recreational activities that are colloquially referred to as “surfing” and involve the riding of breaking waves [9,10]. Surf breaks may be defined as natural (or artificial) features of the coastal environment that result from combinations of swell, currents, water levels, seabed morphology, and wind that give rise to surfable waves [9]. As such, they reflect the convergence of dynamic physical factors that include attributes of the aquatic environment (e.g., swell patterns, bathymetry) and surrounding landscape (e.g., climatic patterns, coastal landforms) [11,12,13]. Importantly, surf breaks vary in character and may be classified in many ways. These include oceanographic terms (e.g., reef, point, beach), the ability required to surf the waves (e.g., beginner, expert), or suitability for different wave-riding craft and modes (e.g., shortboarding “high performance”, longboarding, or “big wave” surf breaks) [10,13,14].

Unfortunately, there has been an extensive history of surf break damage and loss around the world, and surf breaks remain vulnerable to many threats from both sea and land-based activities [8,15,16,17]. Motivations to protect surf breaks, like many natural resources, are underpinned by the values they represent and not merely by an understanding of threats to their integrity or existence. Previous research has identified significant economic, socio-cultural, and personal wellbeing values associated with surf breaks, and this has helped to increase their visibility and demonstrate the relevance of purposeful surf break management [18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25].

The focus of this study is the local knowledge of surfers that is generated through their associations with coastal (and occasionally inland) environments. Knowledge residing in the surfing community is the ultimate authority on the values of surf breaks [26] and is often relied upon in decisions that affect them [22,27,28,29,30]. In addition, recent studies have shown the potential for surfers’ knowledge to be utilised in wider coastal management studies [31,32]. Reineman [30] contends that surfers develop a unique knowledge of the coast through their immersion in these environments in the act of surfing, which he labels as “wave knowledge” that comprises: “a body of understanding of the dynamic oceanographic and environmental conditions in the coastal ocean acquired through experience, which enables surfers to predict short-term and mid-term changes to those conditions and informs their surfing-related actions” [31]. It is thought that due to such knowledge and awareness, any changes within these environments are keenly felt by surfers, and they can act as a form of measure for environmental change and quality [31,32]. This idea was also noted by Tucker [32], who described how New Zealand surfers were among the earliest groups to raise concerns about the impacts of poor water quality in the Taranaki Region in 1970 [33].

Observations of the surfing community also underpin many of the grassroots initiatives that have arisen to protect surf breaks. International groups such as Save Our Surf (SOS), Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), and Surfrider have had notable success in their advocacy for the protection needs of surf breaks [34,35,36,37]. Orchard [27] notes that the development of a legal protection framework for surf breaks in New Zealand did not occur through systematic collaboration between surfers and legislators but instead was catalysed by concerned surfers who became motivated to engage with formal management on a voluntary basis [28]. Similar bottom-up processes have played an important role in shaping formal protection mechanisms in several countries at various scales [7,38,39,40,41].

The successes that such groups have had in protecting surfing resources and surf breaks are frequently adopted as evidence of an environmental ethic within the surfing community [42,43]. However, interview-based studies have reported that despite identifying a connection to the environment as a fundamental aspect of surfing, surfers did not demonstrate any significantly increased engagement with environmental care and stewardship [44]. At a basic level, the surfing industry can also be criticised for the environmental impacts involved in the mass production of consumer products such as surfboards, wetsuits, and clothing [45,46,47]. Several authors contend that surfers are primarily motivated by a desire to protect their own opportunities to surf rather than to protect the environment for its wider benefits [36,48]. This individual interest is also demonstrated in New Zealand research, which indicated that for many surfers, the purpose of surf break management beyond their own surfing interests is largely obscure [49]. However, other studies have found that the relationships between surfers and the natural environment can vary widely across demographies [25,50], which suggests that an understanding of the wider surfing community is required.

The present study contributes to these needs by exploring findings from a qualitative investigation of relationships between 15 New Zealand surfers and the coastal environment, with the objective of characterising the experiential basis and process of development of the local knowledge they acquired. We identify variables that contribute to the nature of this knowledge and conclude by discussing applications in the context of contemporary coastal management.

2. Materials and Methods

Qualitative data in the form of in-depth oral history narratives was collected using a topic-based interview approach [51,52] during a student research project [53]. Oral history is an especially valuable approach for researching activities such as surfing, which typically do not produce formal or official written records [54,55,56]. The interviews were designed to elicit surfers’ oral histories relating to their experiences of the coastal environment through the act of surfing. The selection of participants was based upon evidence of their engagement with New Zealand surfing activities, the environment, surfing culture, or surfing history, as judged by the researcher and evidenced by initial outreach gauging participation in the research. Previous research on the role of surfing in society has shown that the demographics of surfing actors meeting these selection criteria may include indigenous surfers, female surfers, surfing historians, surfboard shapers, surf competition and festival organisers, protest organisers, and surfing participants [31,36,42]. Furthermore, it was expected that variation in the timelines over which they gained experience with surfing would yield useful insights for this study, considering the degree to which surfing culture has changed through time and is expected to reflect its societal contexts [42,48]. As such, a deliberate attempt was made within the final selection to account for a degree of diversity among those finally selected for the study.

An exponential discriminative snowball sampling method was adopted as the approach for identifying and engaging participants [57,58]. Following this methodology, an initial set of candidates were identified on the basis of being prominent figures in the surfing community, and additional people were recommended by previous participants as being potential candidates for the study. The final sample included male and female surfers, indigenous surfers, surfers of varying degrees of experience, surfers familiar with different geographical areas, and surfers who had experience across a range of surfing eras. The only other final selection criteria were that participants under the age of 16 must be interviewed with a guardian present. The research was conducted under Lincoln University Human Ethics Approval No: 2020-39, and informed consent was obtained from all interviewees prior to their participation in the study.

The Interview design was informed by the topic-based oral history interview approach following the recommendations of Hutching 1993 [55], in which each oral history interview is relatively unstructured and allowed to take a unique progression and direction. This provides participants with the opportunity to describe their observations and insights in the format best suited to them. Rather than producing a fixed set of questions, an interview guide of potential questions was used as a discussion prompt when required (Supplementary Material Table S1). However, these potential questions were created with consideration of three a priori themes of direct relevance to the research questions. These themes were: (i) knowledge of surf break environments; (ii) values associated with surfing and surf breaks; and (iii) observations of change. Observation is referred to here and throughout as instances of perceived change that participants have witnessed and described. This methodological approach prompted the participants to engage with the aims of this research while allowing them to respond in a variety of ways and for new content or themes to emerge at any time. For example, the interview processes did not assume that the interviewees experienced any particular connection to the environment, but if they did, it allowed them to describe the nature of their connections and perceptions in terms of their own understandings rather than those prefigured by the researcher. More specific or direct questions were asked during the interviews when appropriate or necessary to clarify a statement or detail. For instance: Can you please tell me when this was? Where did this happen? Who were you with at the time? Results from the study are presented using a discursive analytical framework [59], assisted by a thematic analysis of the interview transcripts against the three a priori themes and two additional themes that emerged from the data following Boyatzis [60], as detailed below.

3. Results

In the following sections, we first describe factors contributing to the generation of local knowledge in the surfing community and then summarise key dimensions of this knowledge and its relationship to contemporary coastal management. These are organised according to the a priori themes of knowledge of surf break environments, values associated with surfing and surf breaks, and observations of change. Two additional themes were identified that intersect with each of these themes: access and accessibility to surfing and the cultural expectations of the surfing community (Figure 1). These additional themes function as cross-cutting issues that mediate, to some degree, perceptions of value and environmental change associated with surf breaks and the experience of surfing.

3.1. Knowledge of the Surf Break Environments

Nearly all participants described a process of building knowledge through their engagement with surfing activities in the coastal environment. For example:

“When I was younger, I would go to the beach and I would see the waves and just think ok cool, but as you start getting to know surfing and the feeling of riding a wave and knowing what you want to ride and going somewhere again and … you start looking at the wave so differently.”

P(14)

This knowledge contributed not only to their general awareness of the ocean and wave environment but also to the development of skills associated with navigation and wave riding techniques for specific activities. For example, one participant, who was a committed lifeguard specialising in rescues in surfing environments, described:

“When you are life saver you know that you can dive under the wave or you can body shoot on it, that’s about the lot, you learn to do those skills so that you can get out through the surf and then back in again.”

P(10)

This showed that the knowledge of the wave environment influenced the practices of surf life savers, who also refined the practice of those skills based on this knowledge, leading to further cycles of experiential learning and understanding for the task at hand (in this, case surf lifesaving).

Many of the participants had developed a considerable depth of understanding of the coastal environment through sustained association with one or more surf breaks. For example, many participants described the application of their local knowledge to the development of their skills for their practice of surfing:

“Surfers are innately conscious of their natural surroundings, they have to be or you not going to be a successful surfer.”

P(12)

“When you race or travel to get a wave and paddle out the back … everything falls away and you’re only focused on the environment around you and surfing.”

P(2)

Engagement in surfing activities can also motivate participants to take an interest in actively seeking knowledge relevant to their ambitions:

“All the locals would look at us and be like you have to learn how to read the maps and turn up on the right days.”

P(9)

In addition to topics directly relevant to their prowess as surfers, this depth of understanding could extend to many other aspects of the coastal environment. Examples include coastal processes that are partly related to the conditions that contribute to favourable surfing conditions, such as characteristics of swell and substrate movements:

“This year there has been a lot of opportunity to surf the beach down here where I live… I’m blown away by how much sand there is on the beach and I watch it moving around, I watch what happens when all the sand is obviously up in the beach or it gets dragged out by a storm, and the contours of the beach are completely different.”

P(9)

Other examples include observations of energy flows and natural ecosystems:

“I felt so aligned with all this energy in the wave and in me and I’m thinking my body is 70 percent water molecules and there is all this energy rushing through the water it’s come from out of space and its rippled through me.”

P(5)

“It’s never been physical, it’s all about being in phenomenal places, sometimes you’re out on your board you see a bird with a fish in its mouth, or a seal will come by or a dolphin.”

P(3)

“You get that feeling of what is underneath you … you get to see these beautiful sunsets, beautiful sunrises, you get to see dolphins, whales. You wouldn’t get to see that if you weren’t a surfer.”

P(7)

It was also evident that gaining experience across a variety of locations could facilitate the building of an understanding of wider patterns and processes. For example, participant 6 described:

“The Peninsula is interesting because the winds are so niche for each little bay that offshores are different and cross off shores are good at some places and even onshores are good at some places, you start chasing different conditions when you know what each beach does. I am still figuring it out, but I actually made a map of every bay that I thought was surfable and found out every angle and really used the ECAN swell buoy, that really helped.”

P(6)

Our results also suggest that a common factor in the generation of local knowledge is spending time in the local environment, which in this case was facilitated by engagement in surfing activities:

“Every beach you go to, if you’re there for a week compared to a day, there so much more you’ve learnt about the water, what it does, where the rips are how the waves form, its different everywhere. There could be a rock under the water or anything you just do not know about.”

P(14)

These examples demonstrate that local knowledge is generated through engagement in surfing. It is catalysed by both the specific activities and locations that are sought by individual participants but may extend to other biophysical and cultural aspects of those environments.

3.2. Values Associated with Surfing and Surf Breaks

Throughout the research, participants identified and described various attributes of surf breaks that were of value to them. For some, this included the physical setting of the wave or its physical properties, which gave rise to certain characteristics:

“My favourite break would have had to have been The Hole…, there’s a reef and as it comes in, as you catch the wave, it has a bend in it, it’s unusual. On a bigger day you can catch a wave and drop down on it and your mate can be on it around the bend. That was lots of fun down there.”

P(4)

Others have preferences for wave types that support specific surfing experiences and opportunities:

“For me it’s not about sitting there and going this is nice, the turns are everything. Barrels are fun, but for me its vertical big hits.”

P(12)

“The enjoyment in surfing for me is that it is not so much the size of the wave, it’s the quality of the experience… It does not have to be a big wave, but when you are just in the right place you are conducting and the energy is flowing, that to me is the essence of any sport.”

P(5)

This indicates that different characteristics of waves are important to different people, which in turn is a reflection of their preferences. For example, there is considerable evidence to suggest that some participants may prefer smaller waves more suited to longboarding:

“The waves look sort of larger, I’ll have to take my short board much to my chagrin.”

P(8)

Although most previous studies of desirable attributes of surf breaks have identified the “consistency” of a surf break (i.e., regular provision of good surfing conditions) as a desirable attribute, our results suggest that it is not always important for surfing participants:

“I’ve always been happy that there’s not tons of surf here, it’s also illusive when you get it you really appreciate it.”

P(9)

Surf breaks and their physical setting were also recognised for the therapeutic values associated with surfing opportunities and experiences:

“You get in the water, get out back and you are just watching for waves, you’re not thinking about anything else. It’s always been something for me, replenishing myself in nature. Surfing provided an easy access to being in nature.”

P(14)

“I did not really have a place as such, but to feel it, it had a calling which was second to none. … you could feel a type of healing.”

P(15)

Therapeutic contributions to wellbeing appear to merge and overlap with other benefits associated with surfing. For example, one participant noted that their engagement with surfing increased their motivation to actively seek new locations and experiences, which contributed to their wellbeing:

“That’s one of the things I love about surfing it’s such a reason or motivation to go out and see new places. Sure, you go to your same spots all the time, but maybe there’s a little green bit on swell maps and I’ll go and check that out. More often than not you’ll get skunked. I drove six hours but didn’t even get surf, but it was still great. I got myself out here to this place that I never would have got otherwise.”

P(11)

Another related dimension concerns values associated with experiences of solitude and wildness. It is also clear that specific attributes of surf breaks, particularly their physical settings, underpin the existence and provision of these values and that these attributes are not common to all surf breaks. As such, these aspects can be identified as differentiating factors when characterising surf breaks for management purposes:

“Mangamaunu feels wilder than the beaches here. You have the Hikurangi trench, and you know you have whales going by. It is a feeling which is beautiful, I love that.”

P(3)

“Personally, I don’t really like to go to all these group things and group meet up surfs, I like to go by myself and places with no people. … for me surfing is my alone time, and I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

P(11)

3.3. Observations of Change

In exploring dimensions of environmental change, some of the changes relate to short-term dynamic changes in the coastal environment, some of which are cause-and-effect relationships between different environmental variables such as weather, tides, and surfing conditions. In many cases, the knowledge of such changes had accumulated because it was relevant to the surfing experience. These examples extend to many aspects of the physical environment, as shown in the following quote, which demonstrates an understanding of relationships between morphological changes (in this case affecting the seabed) and the attributes of surf breaks:

“Length of ride of Whangamata Bar when at its peak is 60 plus seconds, that’s from right out the back right to the beach, you know. I had movies of that. A good day is 40s, but at the moment its 8s its perfect, it comes over perfect but its only 8s”.

P(13)

Other examples include observations of unexpected pollution events:

“I was out in the bay, paddling along it was just disgusting. There was a froth on top right out across the whole bay you could smell it and it was quite greasy. It had gotten worse and was like this for probably three or four weeks there was something dramatically wrong.”

P(1)

The local knowledge accumulated by surfers may also extend to observations of persistent changes in the wider environment, such as those associated with notable storm events:

“In 1975 or 1976 there was huge storm which hit the east coast here … Campbells Bay has never come back.”

P(4)

This longer-term memory that results from a progression of observations may also extend to the detection of cumulative impacts such as those resulting from progressive anthropogenic developments on the coast:

“You can see it there, see the ditch? That never used to be there. There was an amazing break off the rock, but they decided to do all this construction around here, which took it away. I’ve been surfing here forever, and it’s only got worse”

P(8)

Such changes were typically noted on reflection back to a previous state, but this might not necessarily involve a period of continuous observations. For example, participant (4) characterised changes to local surf beaches in the town of Timaru based on childhood experiences upon revisiting the location later in life:

“At Waimataitai beach in the 1960s the harbour hadn’t been extended out and we got great swells in Waimataitai beach. The port was there, but it was more condensed, and the waves would come in. Then it wasn’t as good, It was done progressively over the years and then we were finding places which were better, so it wasn’t until after that we realised.”

P(4)

3.4. Accessibility and Cultural Expectations

Throughout the research, participants identified a number of physical and cultural conditions that acted as mediating factors in their engagement in surfing experiences and at particular surf breaks. These included economic access, the ability to travel locally, and time commitments. Many respondents described proximity or ease of access to certain surf breaks as an influence on their associated values. However, these aspects could either increase or decrease the perceived value of certain surf spots, illustrating that this is a highly nuanced topic for management that varies from place to place:

“In the older days, the road was rough metal so there wasn’t a lot of traffic, the real elite didn’t want to get their cars dirty and some other dungers wouldn’t make it. The road made it special, and now everybody is mobile people come out for a surf and bugger off they don’t stay for the day.”

P(10)

“It’s the inaccessibility it’s not an easy place to surf. You have to drive a lot further between spots, you have to walk to a lot of them. It keeps people away.”

P(6)

Expectations from within surfing communities regarding surfing skill and discrimination between forms of practice were also frequently identified as influential factors in the surfing experiences of participants in this research. Many surfers described how they were often discouraged from surfing in particular locations:

“it’s like all these guys asking where is the surf? And another guy is like DON’T COME HERE.”

P(7)

“The Corner is the place where you get all the bullies, there you might get yelled off a wave and they are all locals.”

P(14)

Other surfers described how expectations were placed on where and in what manner one should surf according to gender:

“When I first started, I got into longboarding and I thought this was so great and I love it so much, but I remember all these dudes were like you should longboard because that’s for girls and I felt like I didn’t want to do it.”

P(11)

Many participants also acknowledged judgement or expectation from non-surfers in relation to their recreational preferences and engagement with surf breaks:

“Deviating outside of breaking in land for farming there wasn’t much people cared to acknowledge so to start surfing or to discover surfing was very left field and to apply it was even more left field, to flag rugby practice to go surfing was like losing one’s mind almost.”

P(15)

“We used to come down here (Kakanui) and people didn’t like us, we must have had complaints because next thing there’s signs up in Campbells which said surf only between the signs, opposite to swim only between the signs.”

P(4)

“Surfers were the last people to be consulted, they’re the people who use it the most, we turned up in suits and ties and they were quite impressed that we weren’t just in t shirts and jandals.”

P(5)

4. Discussion

4.1. Experiential Aspects of Local Knowledge

In this study, all participants possessed significant awareness and knowledge of natural events and changes in the coastal environment. These included tidal patterns, weather conditions, wave quality, sediment distribution, and social norms at New Zealand surf breaks. It was evident that the participants developed this awareness through evaluating how such elements might influence their connections with these environments. There was a shared sentiment among participants that identified the awareness of such factors as a contribution to the practice of surfing. The need to develop this awareness was most clearly described by one surfer, who stated:

Surfers are innately conscious of their natural surroundings, they have to be or you not going to be a successful surfer, you’re not going anywhere, if you can’t make a decent prediction on what the swell is doing, reading the chart, understand a little about sediment dynamics, you’re going to really suffer.

P(12)

Success in this sense does not refer solely to the skill level of the surfer but also to the surfer’s success in predicting changes in the coastal environment that create conditions suitable for surfing, irrespective of the choice of surf craft or technique. Quality surfing waves occur through the convergence of numerous dynamic factors and, as a result, can be a scarce resource [8,15]. Therefore, by tracking these elements, participants increase their chances of surfing quality waves and generate positive surfing experiences. In addition to the surfers’ own wave knowledge, they can access and utilise a range of data sources on increasingly diverse aspects (e.g., topography, bathymetry, atmospheric conditions) of the coastal environment, which informs and contributes to their surf-related interactions. However, this too is mediated by the accumulated knowledge of surf breaks that arises from previous experiences in those environments. Forecasted conditions and predictions of wave quality for a particular area might not result in the expected quality at a specific location for someone not familiar with the surf break. In an example from this study, one surfer commented on the Wavetrack New Zealand Surfing Guide, noting how an entry for a local surf break was incorrect and that the conditions that it suggested were ideal were in fact the opposite. Taken together, these findings suggest that surfing success relies to some degree on an experiential knowledge of surf breaks and are consistent with Reineman’s conclusions on wave knowledge that is developed through engagement with surfing [31].

Many of the participants in this study also spent time in the coastal environment prior to learning to surf. For example, many described participating in activities such as fishing, surf lifesaving, or swimming at the beach, all of which may generate similar forms of local knowledge to that developed through engagement with surfing. A key finding from this research is that, regardless of past connections and degrees of familiarity with the coastal environment, individuals’ relationships and knowledge can be further developed or diversified through engaging in additional forms of coastal practice. Furthermore, engaging in seemingly similar forms of coastal practice can result in diverse and individualised conceptions of value and knowledge.

For some people, the experience of surfing may reflect the spiritual and metaphysical constructions associated with the soul surfer identity, as discussed by Hill and Abbott [44]. Although compelling, the relationship between the surfer, the surfboard, and the wave does not always have to equal a transcendent experience. When describing his own experience of surfing, one surfer noted, “the turns are everything. Barrels are fun, but for me its vertical big hits.” A “vertical big hit” is an aggressive surfing manoeuvre, and a preference for this approach to riding waves speaks to a level of control and power over the wave, where if there is a relationship between the surfer, their surfboard, and the wave, it is one of subjugation. Similar contrasts were also apparent in perceptions of the importance of the natural environment. For some, this was fundamental to their assessment of the values associated with surfing experiences, while others placed little or no importance on it. Although surfers may develop knowledge of the same surf breaks, the way each participant conceives of their connections with them may differ, which results in different priorities from their perspective.

4.2. Bounds of Knowledge

Reineman defined “wave knowledge” as a general understanding of the ocean and coastal features that relate to a surfer’s behaviour [31]. In this study, we show how such knowledge can be linked to particular surf breaks and their attributes. The consideration of coastal processes that contribute to the geographic basis of a surf break is among the most important attributes, and they include the area of open ocean that generates and transmits swell (the “swell corridor”) prior to its interaction with seabed features in the breaking wave zone [28]. Interactions between the two are of critical importance for several disciplines due to the strong influence of wave energy on coastal landforms and ecosystems, particularly during large swell events. In this study, one participant described an understanding of both swell and wind patterns in relation to beach and surf conditions across a geographically varied section of coast gained from repeated visits to the various surf breaks that surround Banks Peninsula in Canterbury. They noted:

“You start chasing different conditions when you know what each beach does.”

P(6)

Rather than possessing a form of general surfing theory, this surfer’s awareness of environmental conditions is embedded within the surf breaks of the area and yet also demonstrates relatively large-scale considerations. Another surfer noted that spending even a week at a beach compared with a day offered the opportunity to learn more about a particular surf break and the processes that occurred.

Although information on the degradation of surf breaks was anticipated, the frequency with which participants demonstrated an awareness of long-term changes was surprising. This finding speaks to the depth of local knowledge that the respondents have accumulated and presents a tangible source of information for assessing change in the coastal environment. Three participants described witnessing the long-term degradation of the same surf break (at Piha, Auckland). All considered that the same development (involving new construction adjacent to the beach environment) was responsible for destroying the previously “world class” surf break. Another participant was among the first to surf in the Timaru (Canterbury) area and discovered several previously unsurfed surf breaks. During his interview, he recounted two instances of surf break degradation that he had witnessed. The first and most immediately noticeable changes involved changes to the Campbell’s Bay (Kakanui) surf break following a severe storm in the mid-1970s. The second described changes to the Waimataitai Beach (Timaru) surf break in the 1970s, which followed progressive infrastructure developments at the adjacent Timaru port that included the extension of a sea wall. These activities were observed to reduce the swell that the Waimataitai surf break received and ultimately reduce the quality and consistency of the surf break. In contrast to the changes noticed at Campbell’s Bay, which were noticed immediately, the observations made at Waimataitai took place several years after the port’s extension because of personal circumstances. This demonstrates a stochastic element where the generation of new knowledge is partly dependent on the coincidence of a set of conditions across both social and environmental considerations, which create opportunities to build experience and detect changes.

The above examples demonstrate that the ability of surfers to notice changes in the coastal environment is not only linked to the extent and nature of the changes but also to their sustained engagement with the environment. They also show that the recognition of change does not require regular visitation and more depends on having acquired a depth of previous experience and familiarity with a locality, against which comparisons can be made. This experience may be episodic and shaped by unanticipated factors that shape the accumulation of knowledge in unique ways. This was reinforced by one participant, who described how his restricted movement during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown changed his awareness of a local surf break, despite growing up and surfing at the same location for many years. This detailed familiarity with a certain area may facilitate relatively fine-scale judgements of long-term changes and cause-and-effect relationships. The ability to recognise trends or instances of change beyond the normal dynamic conditions of coastal environments requires knowledge of the various states that are characteristic of a particular locality. Variables that influence the ability of surfers to identify environmental changes in coastal environments include the type of change, the rate of change, the societal context, and the individual preferences that drive engagement with particular surf breaks.

Some of the key components of this local coastal knowledge and the relationships between them are summarised in Figure 2. Contributing aspects include the role of socio-cultural and biophysical elements that shape the opportunities that underpin the development of this knowledge and the diversity of values associated with surf breaks in the community. Many of these socio-cultural associations depend on specific relationships with the physical attributes of surf breaks, which in turn create a focus for management. For example, physical attributes associated with the mechanics of breaking waves (which are in turn influenced by oceanographic features) influence their suitability for different wave riding crafts, codes, and skill levels, which in turn affect their socio-cultural values. The accessibility of these spaces is also a critical component that can manifest variably as a positive enabler or, in other settings, as a source of degradation to the existing values of stakeholders.

While this study shows that all of the above factors may contribute to the generation of local knowledge, it is also important to recognise the potential for some degree of recall bias that is difficult to detect in interview-based studies [61], but could be further explored by increasing the number of respondents with experience of selected localities in the sampling design [62]. In the present study, this remains a limitation that carries with it the assumption of a lack of recall (or other) biases in the information provided by the interviewees.

4.3. Application of Local Knowledge to Resource Management

This research has identified local knowledge that is developed within the surfing community and is relevant to and can be utilised by coastal management and planning processes. In many cases, the observations of surfers present a source of knowledge that may otherwise be unrealised or unobserved by other groups in the community. Applications of this knowledge include identifying the characteristics of surfing environments and the nuanced cultural behaviours that can be associated with them, many of which are not immediately apparent to non-users of the resource. This knowledge can also be harnessed for the detection of broader environmental changes (e.g., those associated with pollutants or wildlife movements) in the coastal environments frequented by surfers. While the ability of local knowledge to track environmental trends is individualistic and has limitations, oral history approaches such as those used in this study can be usefully applied to develop an understanding of historical local conditions and their associated values.

Within contemporary resource management, we further highlight two specific areas of application for these local knowledge sources. The first involves the measurement of baselines and environmental impact assessments that can be usefully informed by local knowledge. We recommend that these opportunities be further explored through interview-based techniques, as used here, and the development of crowd-sourced data collection platforms that engage with (and are appealing to) coastal user groups such as surfers. These could include standardised photograph or video collection formats, as exemplified by the CoastSnap project, which engages beach users in the monitoring of coastal change [63]. The second involves the development of environmental policies and plans that specifically address the management of surf breaks as natural resources. In New Zealand, the recognition of values associated with surf breaks underpins their protection status at the regional level and is being increasingly addressed using community-based assessment methodologies [41,64]. More generally, value assessments are an important means of demonstrating the socio-cultural and economic benefits of surf breaks to local communities [18,19,20,21,26,65]. In progressing these approaches, it is important to recognise that community members with first-hand experience of these environments remain the key source of knowledge on the attributes of the underlying resource [27,65], and this provides essential information for ancillary purposes such as impact and threat assessments.

Our findings also reinforce and extend those of earlier studies that identified a diversity of positive benefits associated with surf breaks in the community [19,22]. As noted by other researchers, the history of surf break degradation and slow movement towards protection has involved a struggle to articulate the validity of the values associated with surf breaks in comparison with other resources [5,50,66]. In this study, one participant noted how their access to surfing was mediated by the actions of non-surfers who had attempted to discourage surfing at a local beach but then changed their attitude towards a positive perception of surfers. This became an enabling factor that was measurable as improved opportunities and wellbeing for the participant in this example. This highlights the potential for localism to reside not only within the surfing community, as has been previously reported [67,68,69,70,71], but also within the wider community of coastal residents or user groups. Additionally, this illustrates the continued progression of societal attitudes towards surfing and surfers as valued stakeholders and recognised voices in the coastal management discourse.

5. Conclusions

Surfers develop their perceptions of coastal environments and values through their interaction with surf breaks and the act of surfing. This generates a depth of knowledge that resides within the community and has, to date, been largely untapped as a source of information. Exploring this potential is complimentary but also adds to the engagement of the surfing community as stakeholders in decision-making processes that affect coastal environments. Therefore, recommendations from this study include the development and upscaling of knowledge-gathering and engagement approaches that are suited to the surfing community as a local knowledge source and the investigation of similar approaches for other coastal user groups. This study also highlights factors that mediate the generation of local knowledge, including accessibility issues and cultural expectations, which can influence many aspects of personal opportunities and experiences. These include socio-cultural dimensions such as gender and equipment stereotypes and localism. These findings corroborate earlier studies in the “blue space” recreational literature that identify the importance of societal contexts on behaviours and norms [25,37,67], but as shown in this research, they also influence the accumulation of local knowledge at a personal and (by extension) community level.

This research argues that these influences not only limit the ability of individuals to participate in surfing activities but also facilitate their development of an understanding and knowledge of coastal environments. As surf breaks become increasingly threatened, the potential for surfers to develop this knowledge may also be threatened if surfing opportunities are diminished by the degradation of surf breaks. Moreover, this knowledge is of critical importance for sustaining the values associated with surf breaks, which include established benefits for physical, spiritual, mental, and economic wellbeing [72,73,74] that may pervade whole communities and be a significant contributor to community identity. Recognising that surfers’ knowledge stems not only from their surfing experiences but also from their knowledge of specific surf breaks, it is important to consider that unique surf breaks, or those that break relatively infrequently, may offer important opportunities in local or wider-regional contexts that reflect the availability of comparable resources. These elements contribute to the rationale for protecting surf breaks that may be less known and frequented but provide opportunities to experience unique conditions that are essentially irreplaceable.