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Monday, October 04, 2021

No Natural Treasury: NZ coffer-keeper still behind the times

 Back in Aotearoa after several years away in Turtle Island, I am somewhat disturbed to find the NZ Treasury - now labelled 'Te Tai Ohanga - using the term 'natural disaster'.

This framing of disasters as exogenous to society was kicked to the sidelines in the 2015 UNDRR Sendai Framework, with disaster risks now recognised is embedded in development processes. 

The report is just published, I'll pick through it over the next week and see in what ways Aotearoa NZ is manifesting the much fabled resilience, and in particular how Māori are positioned. (The demographic projection for Māori, 21% of the total population by 2043, and 11% of the over 6.)

The prediction is that...

"Natural disaster events [sic] are likely to become more common and add economic and fiscal costs on top of the costs of more gradual temperature and sea level changes. Policy action today on adaptation could reduce some of those costs in the future."


Well, yes. 


As an example, the report provides this table of impacts from climate change.


 

The Climate Change Minister notes Te Arawa's climate change strategy provides some ways forward in this troubled future.

Te Urunga o Kea - Te Arawa Climate Change Working Group 


For those wanting a bit of the history of Indigenous Peoples and disaster risk reduction, John Scott and I wrote about this in a paper published a couple of years ago in the International Indigenous Policy Journal

link

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Simon Lambert

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