‘Where the people lead, the leaders will follow’. That’s the motto behind next Tuesday’s “Greenprint for Whakatāne” get-together to talk about making Whakatāne a more sustainable, resilient and regenerative place to live.

Environmental sustainability has come into sharp focus for the Whakatāne District over the past few years. During the first phase of the ‘Whakatāne Ki Mua’ community engagement, lots of people said that our natural setting and access to the outdoors were of extreme importance to them. People called for action on climate change and for more sustainable ways of living. As a community vulnerable to climate change, the flooding in Edgecumbe brought home to us the challenges that a warming world will bring. 

It’s not just storms that challenge us. Rising sea levels means we need to rethink our infrastructure, including where we draw town water from. Warming weather patterns are helping spread new invasive species and horticultural diseases. Then there is the growing debate around water quality and use, soil degradation and overuse of even renewable resources such as fish stocks. It can all get a bit much.

“I think sometimes people just don’t want to think about this stuff, because it all seems too hard. What can we do?” says Whakatāne District Councillor Nándor Tánczos. “But in reality, it is completely in our power to change how we do things as a community. There are already loads of people doing really amazing things right here in the Whakatāne District. To build on that, it helps to get together, to talk about it collectively, to share with and inspire each other, and to see the little bits that each of us is doing as part of the bigger picture of change.”

That is what Tuesday’s “Greenprint for Whakatāne” is all about. It’s not about getting a lecture on how bad things are. Nor is it about having to take on more jobs. It’s about seeing that there is a larger pattern to our individual actions.

The Whakatāne District Council has already committed to a climate change action plan and to developing a comprehensive Sustainability Strategy. As part of the Whakatāne Ki Mua community engagement, this is an opportunity for people to shape what that looks like, and to develop community initiatives in collaboration with it.

Sustainability is part of it – creating systems that can maintain themselves indefinitely. But it is also about resilience in an increasingly disruptive environment and the ability to bounce back from shocks. It is also about being regenerative. We have caused so much damage to the web of life that it is unravelling. We need to actively stitch it back together.

The event will be from 7 – 9 pm on Tuesday, 20 February at the EastBay REAP offices on Pyne Street. The evening will include inspiring speakers and a chance to engage and be part of the vision.

“This isn’t about technical jargon and a carbon trading scheme. This is about how we as a community want our transport infrastructure, our energy generation systems, our food, our waste/resource recovery and our local economy to meet the challenges we face and help us thrive as a community,” Nándor says.