Senior Sergeant Russell Richards, of Kaitaia police, said extra staff would be on duty in Kaitaia and Ahipara to talk to locals and out-of-towners coming in on bikes, while traffic staff from Auckland would be monitoring the behaviour of riders heading north.
Police would be urging each side to ''understand the others' concerns and have adult conversations about the reasons for the fencing''.
He put tensions over the fencing down to miscommunication and social media posts telling only half the story.
Te Rarawa chairman Haami Piripi said the iwi would hold a rally on the beach with a barbecue, an overnight stay and a wānanga (education session) encouraging young people to get involved in looking after the land.
The fence, which was completed about three weeks ago, was sporadic and blocked entry points to some of the most vulnerable dunes as well as middens and other cultural sites.
The iwi was ''planning to do its own thing'' today and would avoid conflict. If there were any incidents they would be left to police to resolve.
There were a lot of misconceptions about what had been fenced off and why, Piripi said.
''A lot of people think we're fencing off the beach but we're not. The areas we've fenced are areas we don't go ourselves and we don't want others to.''
People would still be able to drive on the beach and around Tauroa Pt.
Piripi said controversy around the dune fence was ''a litmus test'' of the kind of situation likely to arise more often as Treaty settlements returned more land to iwi that people had long treated as publicly owned, and iwi insisted on better management of coastal areas.
The protest organiser, who has since deleted his Facebook event page, could not be contacted for comment.
