The event, to be held on Sunday, July 27, will involve cutting lupins and planting native trees and shrubs, and will be followed by a barbecue lunch.
Nursery manager Dr Nicole Bezemer said volunteers were invited to meet at the Tomahawk Playground Reserve at 10.30am, and the planting site was an easy five-minute walk along the beach access track.
There would be gloves, loppers and spades available for volunteers to use, and people were asked to wear sturdy footwear, bring warm clothes and a water bottle.
There are no toilet facilities at the site.
Dr Bezemer said, in recent years, the Tomahawk-Smaills Beachcare Trust had been increasing its plantings to help create habitat, shelter and safe places for sea lions away from local roads.
"Sea lion mums like to take the pups off the beach and into coastal forest, and some mums go a long way inland to give birth," she said.
At Smaills Beach, there were quite large areas of marram grass and thickets of taupata, which did not provide good shelter for birthing sealions, and the trust was keen to work on re-establishing coastal forest species. These included ngaio and slow-growing podocarps such as totara.
The Tomahawk-Smaills Beachcare Trust was also working closely with the Ecotago team on riparian planting at lagoon creek, which fed into Tomahawk Lagoon, Dr Bezemer said.
Volunteers interested in taking part in the planting day are asked to RSVP by July 25 with the number of people and preference for meat/vegetarian kai options by email to beachcare@zoho.com.
In the event of extreme weather, the planting day will be postponed to August 3.
