Rebuilding a region: Tairāwhiti summit attracts top-level support

Tairāwhiti iwi, civic, community and business leaders will spell out to the Government challenges facing the region at a hui on Friday.

Senior government ministers will be at a major summit announced to address the region’s social and economic challenges, and opportunities.

Around 100 delegates are expected to attend the Tairāwhiti Tomorrow Together Summit, seen as pivotal in advancing a practical and achievable strategy for the East Coast region which is still recovering from the significant impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle and a succession of storms.

Gisborne Mayor Rehette Stoltz says the past few years have been tough for the region, which has endured many storms in the past seven years, with Gabrielle being one of many to hit in 2023.

‘‘It’s been bloody tough in the last few years and we have some local solutions and we need the Government to understand them well.’'

The summit will include a keynote speech by the Minister for Emergency and Management Recovery Mark Mitchell, as well as addresses by business leaders and iwi.

Prime Minister Chris Luxon, Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka, Minister for Transport Simeon Brown, Minister for Regional Development Shane Jones and Minister for Agriculture and Forestry Todd McClay will be addressing delegates via pre-recorded video.

With a population of just 50,000, Stoltz said the region is an ideal place to trial new recovery programmes.

‘‘We know we have to work together and we want to get the Government to walk alongside us. We have challenges from before the cyclones and issues that we want to address with the new Government,’' she said.

Gisborne Mayor Rehette Stoltz has lived in the city for 23 years. Photo / RNZ

Exposed to powerful weather systems from the northeast and one of the country’s most remote regions, Gisborne is significantly affected by catastrophic weather events, said Stoltz. These have severely impacted local industries such as forestry, whose slash byproduct has contributed to the destruction of farms and roads and needs to be continually cleared from beaches.

The region’s erosion-prone hills and coastline are on the front line, bearing the brunt of climate change.

Since 2017 it has been hit by 16 significant events, with nine in 2023 alone. Last year, the region was inundated by 50 cubic kilometres (km3 ) of rainwater.

Background notes to the hui state the region last year had the equivalent of more than 80 per cent of Lake Taupō dumped on it.

The impact has been felt in the primary sector, which is critical to the region’s economy.

The sector accounted for 18.5 per cent of Tairāwhiti’s GDP in 2022, compared with only 5.8 per cent at the national level.

Its main economic drivers are horticulture and fruit growing, sheep and beef cattle, forestry and logging, and grain farming.

The primary sector accounted for more than 20 per cent of its workforce compared with only 6 per cent nationally.

Stoltz said she was encouraged by the Government’s interest in problems facing the region.

‘‘There is a willingness to see what happens on the ground and how they can support us better.’'

Regional profile

• Population – 50,243 people live in Tairāwhiti. Most live in Gisborne City, while others are in more than a dozen smaller settlements in coastal and rural locations, each with populations of no more than 1000
• Highest population of under 25-year-olds in New Zealand (39 per cent)
• Annual median income of $83,000 is 18.6 per cent less than the national median ($103,000)
• Tairāwhiti has the largest share of people of Māori ethnicity of any region in the country. In 2018, nearly 53 per cent of the population identified as Māori, compared with the national average of 16.5 per cent.