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    • Issue #14 Impact assessment for infrastructure development >
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      • Unplanned Consequences? New Zealand's experiment with urban (un)planning and infrastructure implications
      • Reflections on infrastructure, Town and Country planning and intimations of SIA in the late 1970s and early 1980s
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      • Impact Assessment for Pacific Island Infrastructure
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      • Introduction to health impact assessment: practice issues
      • International Health Impact Assessment – a personal view
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      • An integrated approach to assessing health impacts
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      • Introduction
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      • The New and Adaptive Paradigm Needed to Manage Rising Coastal Risks
      • Reflections on Using Risk Assessments in Understanding Climate Change Adaptation Needs in Te Taitokerau Northland
      • Values-Based Impact Assessment and Emergency Management
      • Certainty about Communicating Uncertainty: Assessment of Flood Loss and Damage
      • Improving Understanding of Rockfall Geohazard Risk in New Zealand
      • Normalised New Zealand Natural Disaster Insurance Losses: 1968-2019
      • Houston, We Have a Problem - Seamless Integration of Weather and Climate Forecast for Community Resilience
      • Innovating with Online Data to Understand Risk and Impact in a Data Poor Environment
    • Impact Connector #11 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Impact Assessment: views from the Pacific >
      • Introduction
      • Climate change adaptation and mitigation, impact assessment, and decision-making: a Pacific perspective
      • Climate adaptation and impact assessment in the Pacific: overview of SPREP-sponsored presentations
      • Land and Sea: Integrated Assessment of the Temaiku Land and Urban Development Project in Kiribati
      • Strategic Environmental Assessment: Rising to the SDG Challenge
      • Coastal Engineering for Climate Change Resilience in Eastern Tongatapu, Tonga
      • Climate-induced Migration in the Pacific: The Role of New Zealand
    • Impact Connector #10 Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation >
      • Introduction
      • Is a “just transition” possible for Māori?
      • Adapting to Climate Change on Scale: Addressing the Challenge and Understanding the Impacts of Asia Mega-Cities
      • How responding to climate change might affect health, for better or for worse
      • Kanuka, Kereru and carbon capture - Assessing the effects of a programme taking a fresh look at the hill and high country land resource
      • Wairoa: Community perceptions of increased afforestation
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Damned if you do and damned if you don't -
​The Mitigation Dilemma 
Juliane Chetham 

​I’m not sure about others preparing Cultural Impact Assessments (CIAs) but I confess I do not really stay on top of all the case law. I tend to stick to Resource Management Act 1991 Part 2 matters as the foundation for assessing cultural effects, and couch any effects identified in terms of recommendations to avoid, remedy or mitigate (in that order). 
​
However, in my experience, applicants and councils are inclined to reach straight for mitigation options in a CIA. Admittedly, that’s due to the fact that oftentimes what they are saying is a less than minor effect, tangata whenua are describing as more than minor. These differences aside, it’s generally accepted best practice to make recommendations to advance some form of mitigation for cultural effects.

But what happens when the findings of a CIA indicate that cultural effects are potentially so significantly adverse that they can’t be remedied or mitigated, and from the perspective of tangata whenua can only be avoided, i.e. the application should not proceed? Are we doing ourselves a disservice by engaging in discussions around mitigation?

As tangata whenua, we often find ourselves placed in the unenviable position that while we may oppose an application in its entirety, our duty as kaitiaki, and as a result of our long experience with resource consents almost certainly being granted – means that we are obliged to participate in the minimised process of addressing and advocating conditions of the activity that we oppose. We do so to ensure our ongoing involvement as mana whenua, mana moana and as hau kainga in development activities occurring in our rohe.  But the result is a perception that we are in agreement with the development, and our engagement is then touted as “consultation, active participation and protection”. Is this the outcome we want from a CIA process? 

From a tangata whenua perspective, the consenting process may compel us to negotiate conditions, but this does not constitute partnership or effective decision-making input.

My hapū Patuharakeke are a composite hapū descended from most major iwi groups in the north. These include Ngātiwai, Ngāpuhi nui tonu and Ngāti Whatua. We are located on the southern shores of the Whangarei Harbour and our seaward boundary, reaching a point just north of Mangawhai Heads. In March 2018 we came out of a week of hearings in relation to an application to dredge 3.7 million m­3  of sand from the entrance channel to the Whangarei Harbour and dispose of it at two sites in Bream Bay. A collective CIA prepared by Patuharakeke Te Iwi Trust Board (PTB) and ratified by several other harbour hapū and iwi found that overall, the range and magnitude of potentially unacceptable adverse effects meant that managing, mitigating or offsetting the effects would not be possible. An adaptive management methodology, i.e. staging and halting dredging if unexpected or greater than minor impacts became apparent, or enabling approval for continuing to the next stage if effects prove negligible could not be applied in this instance.

The applicant’s experts identified a number of minor effects that, in isolation, seem relatively benign. However, our assessment was that, when occurring concurrently and in conjunction with past impacts, the potential cumulative effects in relation to marine mammals, benthic organisms, coastal processes, kaitiakitanga, and mauri, for example, were significant. As such, the CIA recommended that the proposal in its entirety be avoided.

This firm position of opposition was maintained throughout the submission process in the face of repeated attempts by the applicant to negotiate a mitigation package. At this point tangata whenua started second-guessing ourselves; i.e.
​
“If consent will be granted anyway, then we risk being completely outside of any monitoring strategies, restoration initiatives, reference groups and so forth”;  or
“Do we want to have some control over consent conditions or do we just accept what is handed down by the commissioners?”

​Perhaps if we were in agreement with the applicant that some degree of potential adverse cultural effect of the proposal would be acceptable, and less than minor in magnitude, we would readily have engaged in discussions on mitigation measures. However, our experience has been that when mitigation measures are advanced or accepted by tangata whenua they become the default position and it becomes difficult to continue to defend opposition to the proposal. For example, it is often implied that  kaitiakitanga is equivalent to participating in monitoring of consent conditions and sitting on a reference group. I myself frequently refer to participating in consent processes as “contemporary katiakitanga”. However, first and foremost, in our view, kaitiakitanga is an act of guardianship not mitigation. It is an act of safeguarding in the first instance rather than reparation after the fact.

During the hearing for the above mentioned dredging project, the Panel were at pains to draw our witnesses out on mitigation options and clearly wanted us to actively participate in discussions on conditions while stressing that of course that didn’t mean they were predisposed to grant consent. They are merely doing their job and doing it very well in this particular case. I imagine we’ll end up doing just that in the end, and probably even get a better suite of conditions and monitoring programme out of it. But is that where tangata whenua should be aiming our sights? Is that all we should hope for?

So that’s the dilemma tangata whenua are faced with: choose not to participate in mitigation discussions and risk that the project proceeds with no or little involvement and conditions that don’t address cultural effects. Or participate, and the applicant, council and panel can all feel reassured that tangata whenua have been engaged, and meanwhile the the issue of the no development option has been quietly shifted to the “too hard basket”.

It begs the question - is the current decision-making framework able to accommodate situations where the findings of CIA indicate that ‘no development’ is the only option to provide for our relationship to our ancestral waters and taonga and enable the exercise of kaitiakitanga?

Download Article as PDF
Juliane Chetham (Patuharakeke/ Ngātiwai me Ngāti Whatua me Ngāpuhi) is an independent consultant with 16 years experience specialising in resource management planning and policy specifically in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi and kaupapa Māori. She has held research, consultation and advisory roles for a range of industry, local and central government, iwi authorities and community organisations. She is a trustee on Patuharakeke Te Iwi Trust Board, responsible for the environmental and customary fisheries portfolios. Juliane is a certified Environment Commissioner and member of Auckland Council’s independent hearing commissioner pool.
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  • Home
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      • Core Group Meeting Minutes
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    • AGMs
    • Ethics
  • Membership
    • Sign Up for NZAIA Membership
  • Conferences
    • Proceedings from Past Conferences >
      • 2022 - Wellbeing, Sustainability and Impact Assessment: towards more integrated policy-making
      • 2021 - Social Impact Assessment >
        • Posters
        • 2021 Students
      • 2019 - Climate Change >
        • Posters
        • 2019 Students
        • Conference Photos
        • Contact List
      • 2018 - Regional Development
      • 2016 - Strategic Environmental Assessment
      • 2015 - Where to for Impact Assessment?
      • 2014 - Transport Infrastructure
      • 2013 Fresh Water Management
      • 2012 - Mineral Extraction
  • Impact Connector
    • Issue #14 Impact assessment for infrastructure development >
      • Impact assessment for infrastructure development - an introduction
      • Place Matters: The importance of geographic assessment of areas of influence in understanding the social effects of large-scale transport investment in Wellington
      • Unplanned Consequences? New Zealand's experiment with urban (un)planning and infrastructure implications
      • Reflections on infrastructure, Town and Country planning and intimations of SIA in the late 1970s and early 1980s
      • SIA guidance for infrastructure and economic development projects
      • Scoping in impact assessments for infrastructure projects: Reflections on South African experiences
      • Impact Assessment for Pacific Island Infrastructure
    • Issue #13 Health impact assessment: practice issues >
      • Introduction to health impact assessment: practice issues
      • International Health Impact Assessment – a personal view
      • Use of Health Impact Assessment to develop climate change adaptation plans for health
      • An integrated approach to assessing health impacts
      • Assessing the health and social impacts of transport policies and projects
      • Whither HIA in New Zealand….or just wither?
    • Issue #12 Risk Assessment: Case Studies and Approaches >
      • Introduction
      • Risk Assessment and Impact Assessment : A perspective from Victoria, Australia
      • The New and Adaptive Paradigm Needed to Manage Rising Coastal Risks
      • Reflections on Using Risk Assessments in Understanding Climate Change Adaptation Needs in Te Taitokerau Northland
      • Values-Based Impact Assessment and Emergency Management
      • Certainty about Communicating Uncertainty: Assessment of Flood Loss and Damage
      • Improving Understanding of Rockfall Geohazard Risk in New Zealand
      • Normalised New Zealand Natural Disaster Insurance Losses: 1968-2019
      • Houston, We Have a Problem - Seamless Integration of Weather and Climate Forecast for Community Resilience
      • Innovating with Online Data to Understand Risk and Impact in a Data Poor Environment
    • Impact Connector #11 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Impact Assessment: views from the Pacific >
      • Introduction
      • Climate change adaptation and mitigation, impact assessment, and decision-making: a Pacific perspective
      • Climate adaptation and impact assessment in the Pacific: overview of SPREP-sponsored presentations
      • Land and Sea: Integrated Assessment of the Temaiku Land and Urban Development Project in Kiribati
      • Strategic Environmental Assessment: Rising to the SDG Challenge
      • Coastal Engineering for Climate Change Resilience in Eastern Tongatapu, Tonga
      • Climate-induced Migration in the Pacific: The Role of New Zealand
    • Impact Connector #10 Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation >
      • Introduction
      • Is a “just transition” possible for Māori?
      • Adapting to Climate Change on Scale: Addressing the Challenge and Understanding the Impacts of Asia Mega-Cities
      • How responding to climate change might affect health, for better or for worse
      • Kanuka, Kereru and carbon capture - Assessing the effects of a programme taking a fresh look at the hill and high country land resource
      • Wairoa: Community perceptions of increased afforestation
      • Te Kākahu Kahukura Ecological Restoration project: A story within a story
    • Issue #9 Impacts of Covid-19 >
      • Introduction to Impact Connector Issue 9 – Impact assessment and Covid 19
      • Covid-19 fast-track consenting: climate change legacy key to success
      • Tourism – the long haul ahead
      • Making sense of the impact of Covid-19: planning, politics, and the public good
    • Issue #8 Social Impact Assessment >
      • Challenges for Social Impact Assessment in New Zealand: looking backwards and looking forwards
      • Insights from the eighties: early Social Impact Assessment reports on rural community dynamics
      • Impact Assessment and the Capitals Framework: A Systems-based Approach to Understanding and Evaluating Wellbeing
      • Building resilience in Rural Communities – a focus on mobile population groups
      • Assessing the Impacts of a New Cycle Trail: A Fieldnote
      • The challenges of a new biodiversity strategy for social impact assessment (SIA)
      • “Say goodbye to traffic”? The role of SIA in establishing whether ‘air taxis’ are the logical next step in the evolution of transportation
    • Issue #7 Ecological Impact Assessment >
      • The future of Ecological Impact Assessment in New Zealand
      • Ecological impact assessment and roading projects
      • EcIA and the Resource Management Act
      • Professional Practice and implementation of EcIA
      • EcIA in the Marine Environment
    • Issue #6 Landscape Assessment >
      • Introduction
      • Lives and landscapes: who cares, what about, and does it matter?
      • Regional Landscape Inconsistency
      • Landscape management in the new world order
      • Landscape assessment and the Environment Court
      • Natural character assessments and provisions in a coastal environment
      • The Assessment and Management of Amenity
      • The rise of the THIMBY
      • Landscape - Is there a common understanding of the Common?
    • Issue #5 Cultural Impact Assessment >
      • Introduction
      • Potential of Cultural Impact Assessment
      • The Mitigation Dilemma
      • CIA and decision-making
      • Insights and observations on CIA
      • Achieving sustainability through CIA
      • CIA - Enhancing or diminishing mauri?
      • Strategic Indigenous Impact Assessment?
    • Issue #4 Marine Environment >
      • Introduction
      • Iwi, Impact Assessment and Marine Environment
      • Sea-Bed Mining Application in Taranaki
      • The wreck of the MV Rena
      • High Court RMA Controls on Fishing
      • Initiatives in the Pacific Islands
      • SEA in an NZ context
    • Issue #3 Strategic Environmental Assessment
    • Issue #2
    • Issue #1
  • Resources
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    • Social Impact Assessment
    • Health Impact Assessment >
      • Climate Change & Health
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    • Cumulative Impact Assessment
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