Webinar: Enabling community-based adaptation

Communities along rivers and shorelines are on the frontline of the climate change adaptation imperative. They cannot adapt on their own. Enduring adaptive capacity is founded on relationships of trust built amongst residents, mana whenua, Territorial Local Authorities, Regional Councils, and other stakeholders. Government’s legislative and policy setting shapes prospects for building these vital relationships that underpin community-based adaptive capacity. Working with and for communities in these two regions has revealed policy-relevant lessons we share in this webinar, including firsthand reflections by mana whenua in Pūtiki on the Whanganui River.

This Deep South National Science Challenge funded project, with direct support by the Horizons Regional Council, was a collaboration between Massey University (Bruce Glavovic, Huhana Smith, Hilary Webb, Derrylea Hardy, Martín García Cartagena); Horizons Regional Council; Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency; the Pūtiki community and the Whanganui District Council; the Tangimoana community and the Manawatū District Council; the South Taranaki District Council; and the Rohutu Trust, residents of the Rohutu Block at the Waitara River mouth, the New Plymouth District Council and Taranaki Regional Council.

This webinar outlines the aim and approach of this project; community-based perspectives and reflections by Pūtiki mana whenua; and project findings on barriers and enablers for community-based adaptation and policy-relevant learning.