So Close and Yet So Far Apart: Contrasting Climate Change Perceptions in Two "Neighboring" Coastal Communities on Aotearoa New Zealand's Coromandel Peninsula

Simple item page
dc.citation.issue65
dc.citation.volume4
dc.contributor.authorSchneider P
dc.contributor.authorGlavovic B
dc.contributor.authorFarrelly TA
dc.date.available2017-09-18
dc.date.issued2017-09-18
dc.description.abstractCoastal hazard risk, compounded by climate change, is escalating. Efforts to address this challenge are fraught and ‘success’ is elusive. We focus on this impasse and recommend ways to improve understanding, reduce risk and enable adaptation. Two Aotearoa New Zealand coastal communities, Mercury Bay and Kennedy Bay, on the Coromandel Peninsula, serve as case studies. Ethnographic fieldwork underpins this analysis. Despite close proximity, local perceptions are ‘worlds apart’. Poor understanding of climate change, and preoccupation with everyday issues, is commonplace. Moreover, there are countervailing community narratives. In Kennedy Bay, which is undeveloped and Māori, climate change is not a manifest concern. Local narratives are rooted in Māori culture and under the shadow of colonization, which shapes contemporary perceptions, practices and prospects. In Mercury Bay, a rapidly developing resort town, seashore property owners demand protection works—ignoring sea-level rise and privileging short-term private interests. Despite laudable regulatory provisions, static responses to dynamic risks prevail and proactive adaptation is absent. Recommendations are made to improve understanding about local cultural-social-ecological characteristics, climate change and adaption. Enabling leadership and capability-building are needed to institutionalize proactive adaptation. Strengthening Māori self-determination (rangatiratanga) and guardianship (kaitiakitanga), and local democracy, are key to mobilizing and sustaining community-based adaptation governance.
dc.description.confidentialfalse
dc.format.extent1 - 28 (29)
dc.identifier.citationEnvironments, 2017, 4 (65), pp. 1 - 28 (29)
dc.identifier.doi10.3390/environments4030065
dc.identifier.elements-id381162
dc.identifier.harvestedMassey_Dark
dc.identifier.issn2076-3298
dc.languageEnglish
dc.relation.isPartOfEnvironments
dc.relation.urihttp://www.mdpi.com/2076-3298/4/3/65
dc.subjectAotearoa New Zealand
dc.subjectCoromandel
dc.subjectKennedy Bay
dc.subjectMercury Bay
dc.subjectWhitianga
dc.subjectvulnerability
dc.subjectclimate change
dc.subjectcoastal hazard risk
dc.subjectadaptation governance
dc.titleSo Close and Yet So Far Apart: Contrasting Climate Change Perceptions in Two "Neighboring" Coastal Communities on Aotearoa New Zealand's Coromandel Peninsula
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.notesNot known
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences/School of People, Enviroment and Planning
Files
Collections
Journal Articles