From Cyclone Response To Policy Change: How Indigenous Research Transforms Systems

Scoop

14-07-2025

Government has ended climate buyouts and expects communities to manage their own risks. Our research into 'Hauraki Māori Weathering Cyclone Gabrielle' shows what happens when they already have to.
The Policy Shift
Climate adaptation experts have told government to stop buying out flood-damaged properties. Communities are now expected to assess their own risks and make their own decisions. Government will focus on protecting infrastructure rather than individual homes.
Across the media, ministers are saying they cannot keep rescuing people from climate disasters while maintaining their own luxury lifestyles. Political leaders return from golden getaways and turn their backs on flood-affected communities. While the privileged retreat to higher ground, the rest are left navigating rising waters without support.
This is exactly what happened to Hauraki Māori during Cyclone Gabrielle. Their communities were cut off for 15 days. Helicopters flew over them carrying generators and supplies to wealthier places. The abandonment they experienced then is now becoming government policy. Responsibility is being shifted to communities while wealth and comfort are protected from above.
At the same time, councils are being handed more responsibility for climate adaptation without funding to deliver it. Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn wrote in E-Tangata that this is not real decentralisation. It is a transfer of risk. The pattern is familiar. Those with power pass the burden onto others while guarding their own interests.
What Our Research Found
When emergency services could not reach them for over two weeks, Hauraki Māori communities mobilised their own systems of care. They moved through manaakitanga. They looked after each other because that is what Hauraki whānau do.
One participant said it clearly:
"It began because they did nothing. I mean, seriously, absolutely nothing. We did our own emergency management planning."
Whānau set up evacuation centres at a kura. They turned marae into coordination hubs. They kept each other warm, fed and safe. No one was turned away. Everyone was looked after.
Meanwhile, Thames Coromandel District Council said it experienced communication gaps and resource allocation challenges. A different participant told us:
"We've been reading these weather patterns for generations, but no one listens."
The truth is that communities already have ecological wisdom and effective response systems. They just do not exist inside official frameworks. Government systems did not even know they existed.
This is the reality behind the policy shift. Communities are already managing climate risks on their own. The danger is that these same communities are being left with fewer options as property values drop and flood risks grow. Lower-income families are being concentrated in the most vulnerable areas. In Hauraki, half of the housing stock is owned by wealthy Aucklanders who visit two to four weeks a year. The Māori median income is twenty-three thousand dollars. For non-Māori, it is twenty-six thousand. With the few available rentals around five hundred dollars a week, many whānau can only afford housing in high-risk zones.
Research That Changes Systems
When we presented our 'Hauraki Māori Weathering Cyclone Gabrielle' research to all three Hauraki district councils, they did not push back. They did not defend their systems or question our methods. They said they would act on our recommendations. They said they wanted to work alongside us. This is unprecedented.
This matters because it shows the strength of Indigenous-led, community-based research. This research does not clock out. It stays in the community and works with whānau to build solutions while foregrounding their voices and documenting what is already happening.
When councils said they could use our recommendations straight away, they were recognising that communities had already created effective approaches. They saw that this research captured real-life responses that could be integrated into official planning.
That change is crucial. Government policy now expects communities to carry the responsibility for climate response. Our research shows they already do. Communities know how to move through crisis using their own systems of care and connection. The real question is not whether they can. It is how we support and resource this work when it happens.
Scaling What Works
Our next research project will take what worked in Hauraki and turn it into practical tools. These tools will show other communities and services how to prepare when formal systems fail.
We will create resources that explain how to activate marae as emergency health hubs. We will document communication methods that worked when the power was out and mobile service was patchy. We will provide templates for coordination based on existing whanaungatanga. We will offer guidelines to help official agencies support community responses rather than take them over.
This work is needed. Because in Hauraki, we are still mobilising. Whether it is a natural crisis or colonially constructed, we keep caring for our people. That is who we are.
The new study will record how this care is sustained over time. It will offer frameworks that other communities can adapt. Because we know this. When the storms come and systems collapse, our people are the first responders.
Government can choose to support this. It can invest in what already works. Or it can keep funding systems that fail at the worst possible moment while blaming the gap on communication issues.
The councils' response shows that system change is possible. When research is led by whānau and grounded in lived experience, it creates real solutions. When agencies listen, they can build systems that hold during crisis.
Our research proves that integration is possible. Not just possible, but essential. Communities move through manaakitanga and relationship networks when formal responses fail. They need systems that move with them. Not around them.
The knowledge already exists. The relationships already exist. The only question is whether this Indigenous-led approach will reach communities in time to meet the risks now being passed down to them.
Author Bio
Paora Moyle (KSO) is Director of Research at Te Whāriki Manawāhine o Hauraki. They lead kaupapa Māori research that centres Indigenous wisdom, data sovereignty and system change. Their latest report is 'Hauraki Māori Weathering Cyclone Gabrielle,' co-authored with Lesley Kelly and Denise Messiter (ONZM).