Developing plan for the future ambitious
Afew weeks ago I attended the council’s Far North 2100 stakeholder meeting, along with representatives of Carbon Neutral Kerikeri. The idea of FN2100 is to develop a strategy to inform planning for the next 80 years, which is nothing if not ambitious.
We only heard about the meeting a day or two earlier, and were a bit disappointed to discover that of the 50-odd ‘stakeholders’ present, more than 40 represented some central or local government agency. Genuinely community-based representation seemed a bit thin on the ground. So with some reservations about the inclusiveness of the process, we will keep an open mind and look forward to a discussion document due in October.
Long-term planning can be a useful exercise, but should be undertaken with some humility, based on understanding its opportunities and limitations. Trying to accurately predict or ‘micro-manage’ events 80 years from now is a fool’s errand, but there is value in thinking about how regard for the future should influence today’s local government decisionmaking. So what might some of those considerations be?
It’s a safe bet that people in 2100 will still want to breathe clean air, eat regularly, drink clean water, and have some means to provide shelter. So we should take care to protect and enhance our soils, air and water quality, and maintain the skills needed to produce, process and manufacture materials to meet our basic needs.
There will certainly be a need for energy, so rather than hoping some clever person comes along and invents a perpetual motion machine, it would seem smart to keep our options open and invest in developing a range of locally renewable sources — solar, wind, geothermal, bio-fuel, hydro, all of which we have or could produce in abundance in the North.
People don’t thrive in isolation, so decision-makers must work to build and maintain strong communities, and public processes that allow us to deal with conflict and contentious issues without resorting to blows. We also need access to open space, coastline and wilderness, and have a moral duty to protect the habitat and ecosystems that other species rely on for their survival.
For social and economic reasons, we are still likely to need a transportation network, to enable us to get around locally and further afield. Again it would seem smart to invest in multiple modes rather than putting all eggs in one basket — as with so many things, diversity builds resilience.
In 80 years’ time our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be in charge, so let’s invest as much time as it takes into helping them develop as informed, thoughtful citizens capable of providing leadership and meeting the challenges they will face.
In short, we could do worse than to keep in the back of our minds the advice offered by the Brundtland report in 1987 — “[Meet] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”