Clutha District Council revised its bylaw governing access to the area’s beaches during 2022, and began enforcing the new bylaw on January 1 last year.
Since that time there have been 39 incidents addressed by the council’s freedom camping officer, 19 of which took place this summer.
A council spokesman said two of those had been "more serious" in nature, and reported to police.
The remainder had been dealt with using an "educational approach", and no fines had been issued to date.
Clutha District Mayor Bryan Cadogan said he believed "static" during public consultation on the new bylaw may have led to a watering down of its effectiveness.
"From a personal point of view, this was a process that occurred just after Covid, and it was the first time we had misinformation and quite a bit of static distorting matters.
"There have certainly been quite a number of incidents since it came into effect, and evidence suggests there perhaps was a greater opportunity to provide protection to these key components of our district’s natural environment that wasn’t taken at the time."
The council had initially proposed banning vehicles from eight beaches — most in the popular summer holidaymaker area of the Catlins — and imposing a 30kmh speed limit on all others.
The proposal garnered 800 unique submissions during consultation, and led to heated exchanges at community outreach sessions.
The council approved a watered-down version of the bylaw proposals in September 2022.
That left all beaches open to vehicles, while providing broad guidelines for safe and respectful driver behaviour.
Council chief executive Steve Hill said most incidents since had been dealt with effectively by the council’s freedom camping officer, through education and dialogue.
Of the two more serious incidents, one had involved a "carload" racing on Kākā Point Beach, later at Cannibal Bay; the other involved unsupervised children driving a quadbike at speed at Papatowai, near an elephant seal.
Police had helped resolve both incidents.
