Teal Bay, one of the coastal communities in the new Ōākura coastal catchment climate adaptation pilot. Photo / Susan Botting
New Zealand’s newest community climate adaptation pilot has just emerged around Ōākura district on Whangārei’s northern coast.
The Ōākura coastal catchment pilot was formally signed off at the Whangārei District Council’s final meeting of the year last week.
It covers the 165sq km Ōākura River catchment. Its coastline runs from roughly Bland Bay in Whangārei district’s north to Mimiwhangata in the south.
The pilot includes three marae. Its main settlements include Whangaruru, Ōākura and Helena Bay.
Council programme manager climate change adaptation Kylie Pedersen said the new community-led pilot was about working with the community to help build climate-related resilience.
These included regular flooding at Punaruku and coastal erosion at beach communities such as Teal Bay.
“The goal of climate change adaptation is to reduce the vulnerability of the community to the harmful effects of climate change such as more intense extreme weather patterns,” Pedersen said.
“We want to work with the community to better understand what is most important for them and figure out together how we adapt to our changing climate”.
The pilot is a continuation of Whangārei’s climate adaptation work since 2018.
The council in 2019 joined 17 regional and local councils across New Zealand in declaring a climate emergency.
The pilot area covers coastal holiday communities, tangata whenua marae, farming and other land uses.
Community climate adaptation typically starts with the community identifying local impacts. The various triggers at which different sectors would choose to take action are then jointly worked out. The community then works through what actions to take to address those triggers.
Councillor Scott Mckenzie, who is a council representative on Northland’s inter-council governance-level joint climate adaptation committee, said the new pilot was the result of a lot of collective background work by Northland’s four councils.
McKenzie said community-led climate adaptation underpinning the pilot was about communities working through how to adapt to climate change in a way that worked for them.
Pedersen is part of the region’s cross-council staff-level climate adaptation Te Tai Tokerau group. This works closely to ensure Northland’s mahi in this area is collaborative and shares lessons.
The new Whangārei pilot has been built on knowledge from the region’s first community climate adaptation project in Ruawai, which began in December 2021.
The Ruawai pilot was chosen by Northland’s four councils as the first site for the region’s community climate adaptation work, but has recently been “paused” by Kaipara District Council, halfway through its three-year process – in spite of the community calling for its continuation.
Pedersen said helming the Whangārei pilot at a catchment level rather than as one single community was a lesson from Ruawai useful to the Ōākura coastal project, which would be based on the approaches used in the original pilot.
Ongoing flooding around Punaruku is one climate change-challenged feature of the new pilot’s catchment area. Russell Road is the area’s single main route in and out. Flooding often closes this road, impacting children trying to get to the local school and more.
Pedersen said communities had a critical role in adaptation decision-making. People from within the new pilot had already been asking for climate resilience assistance.
The Ōākura pilot’s site selection had been based on objective data.
She said the pilot would help inform subsequent Whangārei district efforts to address climate change.
Northland Regional Council is working with Whangārei in support of the new pilot.
Meanwhile, the Far North District Council is close to selecting its first community climate change adaptation pilot in the first half of 2024.
Its website says climate change was already impacting moana and coastlines.
“Over the next 30 years sea levels are projected to further increase by 35cm and ocean temperatures by one degree centigrade,” it says.
“Communities will need to make decisions on how they adapt to coastal hazards like permanent sea level rise, coastal flooding and inundation. In doing so they will need to consider what is at risk and how to adapt.”
■ Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air