Facts
Establishment
The Long Bay-Okura Marine Reserve was established in 1995 largely due to a community driven effort led by the East Coast Bays Coastal Protection Society.
The Society saw the need to have the area protected in its natural state as a typical slice of the Hauraki Gulf. Its importance as an educational resource was also recognised with the Marine Education and Recreation Centre (MERC) based at Long Bay.
Diverse habitats
Map of Long Bay - Okura Marine
Reserve
The shores and waters of the Long Bay-Okura Marine Reserve are typical of those of the relatively sheltered inner Hauraki Gulf. There is a diversity of coastal habitats that includes the sandy beaches of Long Bay and Karepiro Bay, the rocky reefs off the two headlands at either end of Long Bay, and the sandflats and mudflats of the Okura River and estuary.
While Toroa Point at the southern end of Long Bay is 'moderately exposed', the Okura River estuary, in contrast, becomes increasingly sheltered as it extends inland for some four kilometres, and its muddy waters host mangrove forests and saltmarsh.