Kimberlee and Gary Whitehead at their home in Pupuke Valley, north of Kāeo. Photo / RNZ / Peter de Graaf
By Peter de Graaf of RNZ
Gary and Kimberlee Whitehead have lost count of the number of times their Far North property has flooded.
Water has come up through the floorboards, pets have been swept away, cars written off and foundations damaged.
Now they feel anxious any time they hear rain on the roof.
Some people ask: why don’t they just sell up and leave?
“We can’t,” Gary Whitehead said.
“I mean, I’m 58 now. I can’t sell the property because it’s an intolerable risk to life. No one’s going to buy it. I mean, what do I do? Go homeless?”
Whitehead said insurance was no help either.
“The insurance will only pay to fix the house. They won’t pay to lift the house or make it safe. And once you make so many insurance claims, they just cancel your insurance. So we can’t even really make another claim unless it’s a total loss.”
The Whiteheads had pinned their hopes on a joint council-Government buyout scheme for homes damaged in the 2023 storms, but they were refused.
New stopbanks and spillways were protecting homes in flood-prone towns such as Kāeo and Moerewa, but there was little help for people living in isolated valleys like theirs.
“It’s okay if you’re in a town, but anyone that’s rural is just left to their own devices,” Gary Whitehead said.
A new report by the Climate Change Commission – the first to focus solely on Northland – found the region was hit harder than most by climate change.
That was partly because of the region’s exposure to storms, droughts and cyclones, but it was also shaped by socioeconomic factors.
The report said the region’s exposure to the effects of climate change was amplified because many Northlanders lived in rural areas and were employed in “climate-sensitive” industries such as farming and forestry.
The authors said Northland stood out for its “social vulnerability” to climate change, with almost 40% of its population living in areas of high deprivation and a similar proportion not in the labour force.
That meant Northlanders were less likely to have enough money to cope with crises and losses.
People who were already at a disadvantage had limited options for avoiding the negative effects of climate change and could be left behind as others adapted, the report stated.
For example, people with the money to do so could relocate out of harm’s way, while others had to stay in hazard zones where they could be hit again and again by floods or storms.
Many of those issues were concentrated for Māori, who made up 40% of Northland’s population, double the national average.
A large proportion of jobs held by Māori in Northland were in climate-sensitive primary industries and therefore vulnerable to droughts, flooding along rivers and coasts, and saltwater intrusion into groundwater.
As well as examining the impact of climate change, the Commission’s case study looked at the ways local communities and businesses were responding.
Clive Stone, the taiao (environment) head for east coast iwi Ngātiwai, said flooding, even in summer, was a major concern.
“One of the communities we live in is a place called Whangaruru. It’s really impacted by heavy weather events. It gets closed down, kids can’t get to school. The flooding seems to be intensifying, which then leaves us isolated.”
Coastal erosion was another worry, especially when it threatened homes or wāhi tapu such as urupā (cemeteries).
“Large tracts of our coastline are disappearing and it seems to be accelerating. We put that directly on climate change.”
Stone said Ōakura residents were trying to reduce erosion by planting on sand dunes, while whānau in Punaruku were working with the council to reduce flooding by clearing forestry debris from their rivers.
The effects of climate change on the ocean also worried the iwi.
“The moana is so essential to Ngātiwai because a lot of our people get their sustenance from there. We are noticing changes that are affecting our ability to harvest kai from the moana. Things like caulerpa, a new weed that seems to really thrive on the warmer water. That’s another real big concern for us.”
Another person interviewed by the commission was community consultant Zonya Wherry from North Hokianga.
She said one of the biggest climate-related challenges in her area – as highlighted by Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023 – was the fragility of the power network.
Wherry said Hokianga residents had gone nine to 14 days without power, and three to five days without communications.
In many instances, no power also meant no running water.
Modern communication systems – unlike the old copper-wire phone network – also required power, while roads blocked by slips and floods made it hard to bring in food or fuel for generators.
“We were out of power for days. That meant that some of our most vulnerable, our kuia, our kaumātua, who rely on power for water, for hygiene, for their medical equipment, were at high risk. So energy insecurity is huge here.”
Wherry said Northlanders had learnt from Cyclone Gabrielle, with her marae, for example, installing solar power and satellite internet to ensure residents could stay connected to the outside world in future emergencies.
Projects were also underway around Hokianga to make the area more self-reliant in food and electricity.
Wherry said the cyclone response highlighted a disconnect between government, both local and central, and the needs of people on the ground.
She says the Climate Change Commission’s approach made a refreshing change.
“I was impressed with the team, especially the commissioner herself, coming up and being on the ground and visiting all these remote areas, just wanting to hear from us. Hopefully this report is going to be a benchmark to start advocating for us on the ground.”
The report stated sudden downpours, cyclones and droughts were nothing new for Northlanders.
However, they had become more intense in the past decade, in particular during the summer of 2022-23 when four major storms battered the region in seven weeks.
The resulting damage to roads, the railway and other infrastructure cost hundreds of millions of dollars to repair.
A subsequent study found warming caused by human activity had increased the total rainfall dumped by Cyclone Gabrielle by 10% and lifted peak hourly rainfall rates by 20%.
The Climate Change Commission report found other effects were more gradual but also had profound implications.
Farmers interviewed for the report described the double whammy of rising flood risk plus more frequent and longer droughts, and the “whiplash” effect of swinging between extremes.
Higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns promoted the spread of new pests such as Madagascar ragwort, a fast-spreading weed toxic to livestock, and fall army worm, a caterpillar that could decimate crops such as maize.
On the upside, tropical crops such as dragonfruit, bananas and pineapples were now being grown in Northland.
The country’s first commercial coffee farm started operating in the hills above Doubtless Bay in 2023.
However, growers stressed that those niche crops could not replace the staples grown in Northland, and small producers were limited in their ability to commercialise new crops.
Other measures described in the report to mitigate climate change effects included a water storage reservoir built at Ahipara by Far North iwi Te Rarawa to supply its market gardens.
At nearby Kaitāia, the $15 million Awanui flood scheme aimed to prevent a repeat of the devastating 1958 flood that sent metre-deep water coursing through the low-lying town.
Although not yet complete, it was already proving successful.
During a storm in 2022 the volume of water flowing down the Awanui River was almost 50% higher than in 1958, but the town did not flood.
The report, called Ā Te Taitokerau urutau i ngā āhuarangi/Responding to a changing climate in Northland, is the fourth case study to date by the Climate Change Commission and the first to cover an entire region.
The other studies focused on Wairoa, South Dunedin and Westport.
The Northland study was based on meetings with a broad cross-section of groups and individuals in March 2025.
- RNZ