I recently attended the opening of a new Beef + Lamb NZ office in Tairāwhiti Gisborne. One of the key messages I took away from the wonderful ceremony, which incorporated Māori and Pākehā aspects, was hope.
Hope for a long, hot summer, much needed by those who work the whenua after months of rain. And hope that visitors will return to Gisborne city and other Tairāwhiti settlements to enjoy the warm hospitality and add to their Instagram photo updates.
Sunshine is forecast for Tairāwhiti Gisborne and it’s sorely needed after what one local CEO in the horticulture sector deemed a “crappy year”.
You would have to be living under a rock, or possibly not regularly reading the Listener, to have missed the headlines, photos and videos spelling out devastation, destruction and depression caused by Cyclone Gabrielle. The road to recovery from it will take at least a decade and billions of dollars, which the government is aware of. Ministers, including the current and former prime ministers, have visited and seen the damage with their own eyes, which is pleasing.
Gabrielle was a topic of discussion at the Beef + Lamb office opening. However, as I looked around the room on a sunny day, I saw happiness and hope on people’s faces. We are looking forward to welcoming young people, families and international tourists over summer as the world starts to return to some level of normality after Covid-19.
We have been through cyclones before, most notably Cyclone Bola in 1988, which caused untold damage to the region. Aged 11 at the time, I vividly remember helping to sluice out the water from my parents’ basement when it flooded. My family got off lightly then compared with many people who lost their homes and livelihoods in 2023. I never could have foreseen that Tairāwhiti Gisborne would experience so many adverse events in a year.
I now catch myself looking at the sky when dark clouds appear. I worry, as do many, is this another Gabrielle? How will we, and the whenua, cope? Who will need shelter and financial aid? However, we have coped not only with rain events but power cuts and highways to Hawke’s Bay and Bay of Plenty cut off by rock slides. We, as a community, always find a way to stay positive. The word “resilience” is thrown about these days but that sums up this region: self-reliant people who are used to fending for themselves.
That is not to say that there hasn’t been an impact on people’s mental health. Months of rain will do that. Gisborne traditionally has some of the highest sunshine hours in the country, comparable to Nelson. Summer used to arrive like clockwork around late November; the beaches filled up with happy families, festival-goers partied the nights away at Rhythm & Vines and retailers smiled as the cash registers rang.
However, we, like all other communities in Aotearoa New Zealand, need to appreciate that climate change is real and here to stay. Adverse events like Cyclone Gabrielle will continue to happen, and we need to be prepared. As a coastal community, we’re also on alert to move to higher ground every time there is a tsunami warning for the East Coast.
But in the meantime, the El Niño weather pattern is here and with it, we anticipate, a hot dry summer like the good old days. Please come and see us, whether it be by vehicle, passenger plane or cruise ship. We’ve missed you.
Hamish Barwick is a self-employed communications contractor and occasional writer who lives in Gisborne.
