On November 14, 2016 an earthquake struck the rural districts of Kaikōura and Hurunui on New Zealand’s South Island. The region—characterized by small dispersed communities, a local economy based on tourism and agriculture, and limited transportation connections—was severely impacted. Following the quake, road and rail networks essential to maintaining steady flows of goods, visitors, and services were extensively damaged, leaving agrifood producers with significant logistical challenges, resulting in reduced productivity and problematic market access. Regional tourism destinations also suffered with changes to the number, characteristics, and travel patterns of visitors. As the region recovers, there is renewed interest in the development and promotion of agrifood tourism and trails as a pathway for enhancing rural resilience, and a growing awareness of the importance of local networks. Drawing on empirical evidence and insights from a range of affected stakeholders, including food producers, tourism operators, and local government, we explore the significance of emerging agrifood tourism initiatives for fostering diversity, enhancing connectivity, and building resilience in the context of rural recovery. We highlight the motivation to diversify distribution channels for agrifood producers, and strengthen the region’s tourism place identity. Enhancing product offerings and establishing better links between different destinations within the region are seen as essential. While such trends are common in rural regions globally, we suggest that stakeholders’ shared experience with the earthquake and its aftermath has opened up new opportunities for regeneration and reimagination, and has influenced current agrifood tourism trajectories. In particular, additional funding for tourism recovery marketing and product development after the earthquake, and an emphasis on greater connectivity between the residents and communities through strengthening rural networks and building social capital within and between regions, is enabling more resilient and sustainable futures.
A story submitted by Anonymous to the QuakeStories website.
A story submitted by Ali to the QuakeStories website.
A large number of businesses that used to be in the centre of Christchurch relocated after the earthquakes. Are they satisfied with their new locations and do they intend to return to the central city? We questioned 209 relocated businesses about their relocation history, present circumstances and future intentions. Many businesses were content with their new premises, despite having encountered a range of problems; those businesses that were questioned later in our survey period were more content. The average business in our sample rated the chances of moving back to the central city as around 50 %, but this varies with the type of business. Building height did not emerge as a major issue, but rents may be. The mix of types of business is likely to be different in the new city centre.
The concept of geoparks was first introduced in the first international conference on geoparks held in China in 2004. Here in New Zealand, Kiwis are accustomed to national parks, land reserves, marine reserves, and urban cities and regional parks. The concept of these protected areas has been long-standing in the country, whereas the UNESCO concept of geoparks is still novel and yet to be established in New Zealand.
In this dissertation, I explored the geopark concept for better understanding of its merits and examined the benefits of geotourism attractions as a sustainable economic development strategy to retrieve a declining rural economy. This research is focused on Kaikoura as a case study with geological significance, and emphasizes pre-earthquake existing geological heritages and new existing geological heritages post-earthquake to determine whether the geopark concept is appropriate and what planning framework is available to process this concept proposal should Kaikoura be interested in future.
This study explores the nature of smaller businesses’ resilience following two major earthquakes that severely disrupted their place of doing business. Data from the owners of ten smaller businesses are qualitative and longitudinal, spanning the period 2011 through 2018, providing first-hand narrative accounts of their responses in the earthquakes’ aftermath. All ten owners showed some individual resilience; six businesses survived through to 2018, of which three have recovered strongly. All three owned their premises; operated business-tobusiness models; and were able to adapt and continue to follow path-extension strategies. All the other businesses had direct business-to-customer models operating from leased premises, typically in major retail malls. Four eventually recognised path-exhaustion at different times and so did not survive through to 2018. We conclude however that post-disaster recovery is best explained in terms of business model resilience. Even the most resilient of individual owners will struggle to survive if their business model is either not resilient or cannot be made so. Individual resilience is necessary but not sufficient.
Geographically isolated communities around the world are dependent upon the limited assets in local subsistence economies to generate livelihoods. Locally available resources shape and give identity to unique cultural activities that guarantee individual, family and community livelihood sustainability. The social structure provides community relationship networks, which ensure access to, and availability of, resources over long periods. Resources are utilised in ways that reduces vulnerability, stresses and shocks while ensuring long-term resilience. Preparedness and adaptation are embedded into cultural memory, enabling communities to survive in isolated, remote and harsh conditions. Communities’ cultural memories, storytelling, traditional knowledge, interdependence and unwritten cultural norms that build resilience to sustain cultures that have limited interactions with the outside world.
This thesis aims to investigate the consequences of transport infrastructure development, mainly of roads, on livelihood strategies of isolated communities in a tourism context in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. The thesis incorporates a review of literature of transport infrastructure development and livelihood security in reference to vulnerability, resilience and sustainability. Research gaps are identified in terms of transport infrastructure development and tourism, the Sustainable Livelihood Approach, resilience and sustainability. The fieldwork was undertaken using qualitative research methods. Ninety-eight participants were interviewed using open-ended semi-structured interview questions to get an in-depth understanding of livelihood systems, livelihood activities and transport infrastructure development within the tourism context.
Gilgit-Baltistan is a disputed mountainous territory in the Asia Subcontinent whose ancient trade routes (silk routes) were severed during the geopolitical upheaval of the partition of the Indian Subcontinent in 1947. An alliance between Pakistan and China resulted in transport infrastructure development of the Karakorum Highway between 1958 and 1978, providing the only road access to the regions isolated communities. Karakoram Highway connects China with Pakistan through Gilgit-Baltistan. Gilgit-Baltistan is going through immense transport infrastructure development, including the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. The road infrastructure is expected to link China and other South Asian and Central Asian countries to the world and provide a direct link for Chinese goods to reach the Persian Gulf. China Pakistan Economic Corridor is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative project, which aims to improve connectivity and cooperation between 69 Eurasian countries by investing in infrastructure development. Such an immense infrastructural development is expected to enhance the mobility of people, goods and services.
In order to understand the impacts of transport infrastructure development, this thesis has analysed livelihood capital status at macro, and micro levels are examined over two time periods (pre-road and post-road). Results show that sustainable farming practices provided long-term resilience to these geographically isolated communities. Transport infrastructure development has been a significant factor to ensure access and has resulted in changes to social inclusion, socio-political structures and livelihood opportunities with a subsequent dependence upon tourism, imported consumer goods and a monetary economy as people divert valuable farmland to building developments and cash crop monocultures. Gilgit-Baltistan is vulnerable to frequent manmade and natural disasters, such as terrorism, earthquakes and landslides. Shocks impact upon the livelihoods of those affiliated with tourism who are forced to revert to subsistence farming practices and alternative livelihood choices. The dependency on external resources and subsequent loss of the cultural memory and farming techniques has created a vulnerability to the unpredictable shocks and disasters that frequently close the singular access road.
The thesis finally presents the ‘Livelihood Framework for Transport Infrastructure Development and Tourism (LF-TIDT)’ a guiding tool to understand the impacts of transport infrastructure development at micro and macro levels for tourism planning, policy formulation and implementation and management. Attention is drawn to the newly introduced ‘Location: a Meta Capital’ and its importance in terms of geographically isolated communities. The research also highlights that livelihood capitals are not equally essential to achieve sustainable and resilient livelihood outcomes.
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck North Canterbury, on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island on 14 November 2016 had significant impacts and implications for the community of Kaikōura and surrounding settlements. The magnitude and scope of this event has resulted in extensive and ongoing geological and geophysical research into the event. The current paper complements this research by providing a review of existing social science research and offering new analysis of the impact of the earthquake and its aftermath on community resilience in Kaikōura over the past five years. Results demonstrate the significant economic implications for tourism, and primary industries. Recovery has been slow, and largely dependent on restoring transportation networks, which helped catalyse cooperation among local hospitality providers. Challenges remain, however, and not all sectors or households have benefited equally from post-quake opportunities, and long-term recovery trajectories continue to be hampered by COVID-19 pandemic. The multiple ongoing and future stressors faced by Kaikōura require integrated and equitable approaches in order to build capability and capacity for locally based development pathways to ensure long-term community resilience.
Disasters are often followed by a large-scale stimulus supporting the economy through the built environment, which can last years. During this time, official economic indicators tend to suggest the economy is doing well, but as activity winds down, the sentiment can quickly change. In response to the damaging 2011 earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, the regional economy outpaced national economic growth rates for several years during the rebuild. The repair work on the built environment created years of elevated building activity. However, after the peak of the rebuilding activity, as economic and employment growth retracts below national growth, we are left with the question of how the underlying economy performs during large scale stimulus activity in the built environment. This paper assesses the performance of the underlying economy by quantifying the usual, demand-driven level of building activity at this time. Applying an Input–Output approach and excluding the economic benefit gained from the investment stimulus reveals the performance of the underlying economy. The results reveal a strong growing underlying economy, and while convergence was expected as the stimulus slowed down, the results found that growth had already crossed over for some time. The results reveal that the investment stimulus provides an initial 1.5% to 2% growth buffer from the underlying economy before the growth rates cross over. This supports short-term economic recovery and enables the underlying economy to transition away from a significant rebuild stimulus. Once the growth crosses over, five years after the disaster, economic growth in the underlying economy remains buoyant even if official regional economic data suggest otherwise.
