Retreating from the sea
Climate change could lead to mass managed retreat from New Zealand’s coasts but how would that work and who would pay? Dominic Harris investigates.
‘‘Fehi was pretty scary. This was worse than we had ever seen before, and I don’t think any of us expected it to be as bad as it was.’’
Brent Dyhrberg Hector resident
The boiling and hissing sea rushing towards them was both an unexpected and terrible sight. Brent Dyhrberg and Rex Wishnowsky were in their little garden desperately trying to mend a makeshift defensive wall when water suddenly surged up around them – a dark, menacing ocean that swirled around their legs and threatened to carry them away.
The giant wave broached a gentle rise of the beach that acts as a barrier at the boundary of their land, flattened a flimsy line of flax and swamped their lawn, sending Wishnowsky tumbling across the grass.
‘‘We were outside trying to secure a barricade that we had actually put up the day before, trying to strengthen it because one of the waves had pushed it over,’’ Dyhrberg, 68, said as he looked out of the French windows on the first floor of his home and recalled the day ex-Tropical Cyclone Fehi came to Hector.
‘‘The big surge hit at about one o’clock. It came over the flax bushes, bowled Rex, and I was left trying to get a bit of support from something.’’
The water, half way between their ankles and knees, flooded beyond their two-storey house to almost the road’s edge, but mercifully did not enter their garage.
More surges followed before the swells lessened as the tide retreated. But the damage was done, leaving their land scarred.
‘‘It ruined the pungas that we had, we had a beautiful rimu growing which was probably about 12 years old, the kauri tree has been affected as well,’’ Dyhrberg said.
‘‘Most of the things in the garden we have ripped out since because they were dying due to salt water.’’
They are frightened, too. ‘‘Fehi was pretty scary. This was worse than we had ever seen before, and I don’t think any of us expected it to be as bad as it was.’’
It is now a month since Fehi whirled out of the South Pacific and lashed New Zealand, two weeks since ex-Tropical Cyclone Gita followed suit – unwelcome visitors to those West Coast communities such as Westport, Granity and Hector.
Remote and exposed, their position on the edge of the world is the front line when it comes to the risks associated with climate change.
For many residents their little towns and villages are a slice of paradise. But they are now having to come to terms with the fact that rising tides are slowly eating away at them.
Some have attempted to defend their coastlines, building rock walls and groynes in a bid to deflect the sea.
But it is becoming clear they are increasingly vulnerable, and that in some cases manning the barricades simply will not work.
A stark reality is beginning to dawn on some – that perhaps the only option will be to leave.
But how do you go about relocating an entire community – and who on Earth pays for it?
New Zealand is extremely vulnerable to climate change; the country faces greater frequency and intensity of extreme events such as higher temperatures, droughts, wildfires in the coming years – and increased sea-level rise and flooding.
The consequences are sobering. Over the last 100 years the sea level around New Zealand has risen at an average rate of 1.8mm per year. But the Ministry for the Environment estimates they will rise further by up to 40cm by 2060 – the equivalent of 8.9mm a year – and by one metre by 2100, or
11.76mm annually – and that is before any collapse of the Antarctic ice sheets is factored in.
Such rises are potentially devastating, and those living along the 15,000km or so of coastline face the gravest risk.
A report released in December to inform the development of local government policy noted that
133,265 people are at risk of sea level rise, and 68,170 buildings – of which 43,680 are houses – are vulnerable, with a replacement cost of $19 billion.
That the country needs to be better prepared to adapt to climate change is something the ministry has openly admitted, but thus far there has been a lack of joined-up thinking.
In another major report published before Christmas, a panel of experts assembled by the Government to carry out a ‘‘stocktake’’ and advise on how to adapt to climate change were highly critical of the current efforts.
They said: ‘‘The response of central government agencies to adaptation is not co-ordinated and there is little alignment of legislation, adaptation goals or agreement of priorities.’’
A ‘‘lack of nationwide assessment’’ of climate-change risks has hamstrung the development of a planned approach to adaptation.
Councils would like to do more, the report says, but feel inhibited by a vacuum in government leadership, funding and capability constraints and lukewarm enthusiasm from their communities.
Experts believe too much focus is on reacting to disasters, such as the assistance and recovery effort after Fehi, rather than planning and building resilience beforehand.
Assistance is there, though. The guidance for local government outlines 10 steps on planning for the impacts of climate change, from identification of risk and priorities to how to implement strategies.
It also offers options for those at the coal face on the coasts, from using buffers such as dunes and sea walls, modifying properties by raising floor levels or creating paths to allow water to flow away, to using planning to keep people out of harm’s way.
And it also floats the idea of relocation – a managed retreat from the sea.
Such a method of adapting to climate change is not new – it has been used to relocate 1.3 million people in 22 countries over the last three decades.
And the idea is now being considered by authorities on the West Coast for communities like Granity, Hector and Ngakawau.
But it is fraught with complexities, not least the question of how such a mammoth task could be funded.
Mike Meehan, chief executive of the West Coast Regional Council (WCRC), said the idea of a mass relocation is still very much in its infancy – and that there is no ‘‘magic fund’’ to pay for it.
‘‘We are wondering how the hell
we do it,’’ he said. ‘‘What we do know is that at the moment there’s no big fund to relocate people – there’s no blueprint of how to do it.
‘‘What we’re considering is potentially whether we, maybe with some central government support, can work with Buller District Council (BDC) to become a not-for-profit developer, where the regional council could secure a loan, buy some land and do some research on that to make sure it’s a safe place to build.’’
Any such move would likely involve the councils finding a suitable spot not so far away that it would disconnect people from their communities and culture, then sub-dividing it to create a place for people in the worstaffected areas to relocate to.
‘‘The way we would fund that would be through potentially a targeted rate on the property, which would pay for the relocation of the house and the section,’’ Meehan said.
‘‘It would enable the people to move out of the area, they’d have a much safer area to live in, they’d be able to secure insurance and they’d have a much more positive outlook into the future.’’
Relocation could mean physically moving homes or building new properties and leaving old ones to the mercy of Mother Nature.
But there are no firm proposals in front of the community on what it would actually look like.
And the idea has already hit snags with residents in the Granity area.
‘‘We’ve talked to people up there about it and they’ve said, ‘that sounds good, but I couldn’t relocate my house because if I try to pick it up it’s a 1930s bungalow that’ll fall to pieces so I won’t actually be able to relocate it’,’’ Meehan said.
Managed migration is only one option in the rush to combat rising sea levels, but Meehan feels it is likely to be the best.
The WCRC asked environmental research organisation Niwa to come up with alternatives, resulting in the idea of constructing sea walls and potentially groynes.
Both options had flaws, though numerous residents have taken it on themselves to build their own walls, and neither is without expense.
‘‘Ultimately the council is the people, so our money comes from our ratepayers,’’ Meehan said. ‘‘It would come through the people that benefit from that, which would be the frontline properties.’’
And Niwa was at pains to emphasise those alternatives would offer only a temporary solution – a sticking plaster to the impact of rising seas.
‘‘There’s no silver bullet. Putting a sea wall there is very expensive, it would put a very heavy rate on that community for a long time and it would simply delay this conversation that we need to have now, which is about should the properties stay there.
‘‘In every report it says you can do this, this and this, but ultimately relocation is probably the best way forward.’’
His predicament draws sympathy from Dave Cull, president of councils’ champion Local Government New Zealand and mayor of Dunedin, who is also perplexed about funding for climate change adaptation.
‘‘I don’t know the answer to who pays for it. I suspect at the moment, because there are no guidelines and there probably hasn’t been much of a need for them up until now, that each community or council would be trying to work it out on its own.
‘‘I imagine in the Buller case you have a combination of a resource-poor council and equallyresource poor property owners, so in a relatively small-populated council with a small ratepayer base, a few hundred thousand dollars is a significant proportion of a rates increase.
‘‘So we need clarity on that and at the moment we don’t have automatic mechanisms to access other funding streams.’’
In Cull’s own area, erosion of a beach has put privately-owned properties at risk.
He is keen not to abdicate responsibility but said it is not the council’s role to protect private property from erosion.
‘‘That doesn’t mean that some councils won’t see it as inevitable that they will have to take some responsibility, but that then raises the question of cost.
‘‘But we can see why councils are reluctant to automatically take legal responsibility because it just opens the floodgates for precedents. There’s squillions involved.’’
Managed relocation on such a scale in coastal areas has never happened in New Zealand before.
But there is a precedent, when the local council in what was Waitakere City in Auckland set up a 10-year project to address escalating flooding in the 1990s.
At the outset it decided not to have compulsory acquisition of the properties affected, instead adopting a voluntary approach to property purchase at a fair market price.
It also involved an open participation process to include owners and community representatives.
The council developed a plan to engage the public and took great care to accommodate their thoughts and views throughout the process.
It resulted in 78 purchases of properties to allow for flood-plain redesign, and the managed retreat was achieved by linking to environmental, social, economic and cultural goals, as well as strengthening the social fabric of the community by providing new parks and cycle ways and accommodating those who moved to other areas.
Dr Judy Lawrence, senior research fellow at the Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington, believes incorporating a soft approach to such relocation is vital.
In an academic paper she coauthored last summer she suggests the complexities of managed migration go beyond the financial and political to more ‘‘intangible costs’’.
Relocation should engage with communities to address a sense of the loss of ‘‘place’’, the social and emotional challenges of displacing people from their homes, the disruption to community life, and the loss of buildings or land of architectural, aesthetic or spiritual value, she argues.
Lawrence, who co-chairs a group advising the government on climate change, believes she has hit upon a funding model for climate change adaptation, one that would aid cash-strapped councils with low numbers of ratepayers.
She suggests existing local government funding methods are unlikely to be sufficient to meet the expected costs of adaptation, while central government methods are likely to be ad hoc and so would not offer consistency, certainty and stability.
She proposes creating a new Climate Change Adaptation Fund (CCAF) to pay for preventative work rather than post-event clearups, and modifying other policy, such as around planning or funding public infrastructure, accordingly.
A CCAF would ‘‘enhance the capacity for anticipatory governance in relation to adaptation through the funding of cost-effective and equitable responses’’, reducing climate change risk exposure over time and minimising future damage and loss.
‘‘An advantage of such an approach is that it would enable policy-makers to establish a purpose-built institution with a specific and enduring statutory mandate,’’ the paper suggests.
Speaking to The Press,
Lawrence said such a fund would effectively act as a ‘‘climate pension’’, but would need central government involvement in the long-term.
‘‘It’s much better to put central government and local government money into this, rather than using money that is already in the consolidated revenue for fixing up the pieces after it’s happened.
‘‘A CCAF is one way of doing it, built similarly along the lines of the Government’s superannuation fund.
‘‘It is a future-proofing fund that we all pay into. Taxpayers will bear some of the cost of climate change in the future, whether we have a fund or not.
‘‘The EQC fund currently only
‘‘In every report it says you can do this, this and this, but ultimately relocation is probably the best way forward.’’
Mike Meehan Chief executive of the West Coast Regional Council.
deals with after-the-fact, but we are talking about a fund that deals with before-the-fact.’’
In the meantime, local and regional councils are desperate for guidance from central government on what steps they should be taking.
They are also keeping a close eye on what is happening in Hawke’s Bay, where a 100-year coastal hazards strategy has been established to deal with erosion, sea inundation and flooding.
In the face of little guidance from the government, two community panels have been set up to recommend responses to risks using a structured decisionmaking process, supported by a technical working group and a long-term funding model.
But help from the top is key for sustainable and co-ordinated longterm planning, Cull believes.
‘‘What we want to see is a conversation in the first instance between central and local government to establish a framework for responsibility, liability and what adaptive options there might be in certain circumstances,’’ he said.
‘‘Local government needs to be enabled and protected to some extent, and that’s what we’re asking for – for more clarity and more direction from central government.’’
So what of the role central government plays?
The Ministry for the Environment is awaiting the recommendations of a second report from its advisory group on adaptation to climate change, due next month, and will respond to it later in the year.
It is also leaning heavily on the guidance to local government, which a spokeswoman says will ‘‘encourage good decision-making so that New Zealand faces fewer risks from climate change in coastal areas’’.
She added: ‘‘Coastal erosion is managed by local councils who are responsible for managing risks through land use planning.’’
It seems apparent the government, like councils, is in the early stages of working out how to deal with the crisis.
But Cull has confidence in what he has seen so far.
‘‘They have acknowledged there is a problem and they have expressed their intention to address it.
‘‘We’ve had very positive interactions with a number of ministers, all of whom have acknowledged that local government and ministers need to work together.’’
What is certain is that in 20 years, 50 years, 100 years the map of New Zealand will look very different to that of today.
But it is the here and now that concerns those living with the impact of climate change quite literally on their doorsteps.
While Dyhrberg and Rex Wishnowsky were spared the worst of Fehi’s wrath, others were not so fortunate. In Buller 32 homes were red-stickered, while another 21 were yellow-stickered – damaged but habitable.
Insurers are still counting the costs but it is expected to run to the millions of dollars.
Yet these once-rare events appear to be happening more often.
Less than three weeks after Fehi, Gita barrelled across New Zealand. Granity and Hector were largely spared that second time, but it was unsettling for residents.
As they appraised their property a day after being evacuated over Gita, the two elderly men were clear about what they want – and it does not involve any form of ‘‘managed migration’’ from the home and community they have lived in for the last 11 years.
Comforting their rescue cat, Pinkie, in their living room, Wishnowsky, 64, said: ‘‘We are getting old, we don’t want to move. We want to stay here, this is a lovely little community.
‘‘But I’m scared at the rate [the coastline] is eroding. We want a wall, all the way along. We want the council to help us with erosion protection, but we’re not asking them to pay for it all.
‘‘The council could put the cost onto our rates, say over a 10-year period, so it is spread out.
‘‘Most people down here are retired, they don’t have a lot of money, but the council could come in and get finance for us.’’
Residents have been invited to a number of meetings over the last couple of years where council staff try to go through the options available, but Wishnowsky believes they want people to move – a huge frustration as he and Dyhrberg have just spent $22,000 having their roof repaired.
‘‘The council come along and tell us what their plan is, but they haven’t really come up with one yet,’’ he said.
‘‘I’ve been to four meetings and they are still talking about what they were talking about the first time. They want us to relocate and say they’re sourcing land, but you can’t relocate this, it’s two-storey.
‘‘Personally, I don’t think I ever want to come back to this house if it’s not sitting here. They’d be better off to just pay us out and we’ll go and build another house somewhere.’’
Dyhrberg has perhaps a little more sympathy for the councils’ predicament.
‘‘It’s part of climate change, I guess, and we are just one of many communities around the coast of New Zealand.
‘‘There’s a lot of ifs and buts about relocating and we don’t know who pays for what. We would like to be able to stay here, this is paradise to us.’’
As they discussed their options a neighbour knocked on their door to check in on them.
Lynn Stoddart, 62, a musician and artist who has lived in Hector for 17 years, was furious about being evacuated during Gita and cannot stand the idea of people dictating how she should live.
‘‘I don’t want to be relocated, full stop. We’ll look after ourselves. This is an adventure – why is everybody scared for us? I’m not scared, I’m just trying to live with this.’’
Pressed on whether a future of the sea lapping at her door might make her rethink, Stoddart said: ‘‘I have considered that but I don’t want to have it at the forefront of my mind.
‘‘It’ll be sitting at the back, ready, but I don’t even want to talk about it. That’s just my little possibility. If I have to move then I’ll do it my way, I won’t be ‘relocated’ into some little pensioner pokey-hole somewhere.’’
Stoddart has refused to attend any of the council meetings – exemplifying some of the challenges Lawrence suggested councils need to address when communicating with residents.
On discovering from her neighbours a relocation could involve physically moving her house, her perspective entirely changed.
‘‘I could cope with that. I don’t know if they could do it but I’d like to go back up the hill and get a piece of land.’’
These are the issues being discussed up and down New Zealand, from quiet communities to town halls and the corridors of power.
But while academics mull over complex scenarios, politicians juggle management strategies and residents agonise over heartwrenching decisions about their future, the sea quietly goes about its business, eating away at those vulnerable fringes of the country.
‘‘I don’t want to be relocated, full stop. We’ll look after ourselves.’’
Lynn Stoddart Hector resident