Economy 

Notes from the Transition Tairawhiti Dreamstorm held on Tuesday June 15th 2010 

What will be the major industries that create wealth and jobs for us in 2030 ? Forestry ? 
Farming ? Tourism ? 

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Need to ascertain our community’s idea of what wealth is e.g. the balance 
between life and work, quality of life, wants versus needs etc. Will be different for 
everyone, but would be a useful study. 
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Trade will still happen, but we will need to replace imports with locally produced 
goods where we can to become more self-sufficient. There is plenty of evidence 
of pre-oil trade in New Zealand – we need to examine that closely and focus on 
our strengths in biodiversity. 
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Could see a shift back to satellite-town structure of old with places like Te Karaka 
and Waipiro Bay becoming more populated to service the food growing activity in 
those places. 
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Food scarcity in heavily populated centres could see many people (including the 
wealthy ones) moving closer to their food supply e.g. to Tairawhiti – the 
opportunity would be to develop high-end “villages with a view” with jobs created 
to service their needs. We need to manage the population flow into our region 
and turn this flow to our advantage. Basically, start thinking like an 
independent state. Calculate tax flow in and out of the region and gain more 
control over it to reduce our dependency on Government funding while 
measuring and managing “leakage” of money out of Tairawhiti e.g. local 
currency. 
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Enhancing the ability of our people to exploit their Intellectual Property Rights i.e. 
their ideas, while also attracting those with valuable IP rights from further afield 
e.g. artists, authors, designers etc This would require world-class IT 
infrastructure. 
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Develop maritime infrastructure with hi-tech shipbuilding creating jobs – super 
yachts, solar sail technology for moving goods etc. 
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“Free Range” Old Person’s facilities in beautiful self-sustaining places that take 
into consideration oil-based pharmaceuticals being less available while human 
life expectancy is expected to increase markedly. New bio-medicines will be 
needed. 
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Develop the Hemp industry within our region – for energy, food for livestock, 
textiles etc. Could also have a tourism spin-off. Need to incubate this idea now. 
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Stockpile our waste rather than discarding it and re-use it later eg. Plastic 
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Farming (food growing) for our local community – perhaps a more collective 
approach to this. 
Social and Environmental Services 

Currently these are non-revenue generating and rely on funding for them to happen – 
how will they still be happening in 2030 ? 

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Neighbourhood accountability and “response”ability 
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Develop a Timebank to reward and incentivise volunteerism to carry out 
important social and environmental services like tree planting, elderly care etc