Millie Watkins

As an island 35 minutes removed from the isthmus, Waiheke is particularly vulnerable to oil price spikes. It stands to affect everything from food to transportation, small businesses to healthcare. The Local Board may not be able to do much about global changes, but will end up being tasked with dealing with the results. There is much on a local level that the Board can do; such as forming a Community Resilience Unit on the island and to take up the work that Ross MacRae started in forming Neighborhood Support Groups, to help strengthen the community's preparation for and response to a variety of emergencies. Waiheke has a long way to go to get ready. Christchurch has an orgainzation called Ready Canterbury to help citizens and communities prepare for emergencies and such....did that play a part in the fact that there were 0 fatalities in the recent earthquakes?

It is important to note that CDEM Auckland is in charge of all emergency response on the island, they initiate the chain of command, and they have not developed, to my knowledge, a performance scenario that does not rely on petrol-driven vehicles. So we do not have a resilient emergency plan in place at the present time. CDEM tells everyone in their DVD presentation to, "Prepare to be on your own". There is simply not enough funding and staff to cover all of the needs around New Zealand. We have to start making plans to take care of ourselves and each other.

Hi Jafa,

I take very seriously our guardianship of the Hauraki Gulf. I support measures which can aid us in the goal of preserving our natural resources for generations to come. It would be wise to gather as much protection as possible, as multinational corporations wield signicant power in our society.

I think it would be an honour to allow Waiheke the distinction of being recognized for things it already does well and support it in advancing even further along the path of strong sustainability, which it will need to do anyway, for its continued viability as a resident community. There is little that I as a Local Board member would have to do, so it would not take any time from my responsibilities. As a board member my role in the Biosphere Reserve initiation would be to act on a mandate from the island and simply support a motion put through to the first Waiheke Local Board Meeting to bring it to the City Council's agenda. And that is all that is required. It seems a no-brainer to me.

There are already close to 500 people on the island with sufficient interest in the potential of this idea that they have signed themselves up to receive regular updates on its progress. What do so many people see in the Biosphere Reserve project, especially longtime residents? I can only speak for myself. The BR project adds a layer of protection, an umbrella of sorts. It does not take the place of the hard work that will need to be done in the coming years, but it will not take anything away from the island, either in funding or in regulation.

Perhaps if we already had Biosphere Reserve Status last year we would have held a stronger position against the corporate takeover of our community waste management program. We can't change the past, but we can take steps to improve our chances for the future.

Millie Watkins

A healthy local economy is crucial to the island's welfare. I wish it was as easy as simply being pro- (or anti-) business, the same for development. We need long-term high-quality businesses that are locally-owned and operated. Tourism and Building trades are short-term solutions that rely on a booming economy, so they do not create a resilient community, as people don't travel or build new homes in a recession. Likewise development that shortchanges the future by poor decisions made in the present will not create a resilient island economy.  When we ignore the environment and take shortcuts we always pay for it in the end, with pollution that must be cleaned up, unsafe drinking water, or an extraordinary number of landslips as we have recently seen. As in anything, there is no black and white pat answer. Business and development are both inherently good but have the potential to be damaging if not managed properly. The guiding principle we should follow is that Small and Local is the Best. It is the way of the future. Local is the new black :)

I do not see these as particulary related but that may be because my view of creating affordable housing is based on different assumptions. I do not believe it is necessary to build brand new affordable home developments. There is sufficient existing housing stock on the island to work with, although not on the same scale as projects are usually planned. I see a need to rehabilitate old poorly insulated baches and collaborate with professionals on island to devise community housing schemes which utilize local tradespeople and volunteers to get our community members into decent affordable homes and create jobs at the same time. This would, I imagine, be in keeping with the biosphere reserve project's prime directive of sustainability.

My experiences working with local and international building projects has led me to be deeply confident that when a community has the will to house it's fellow residents, it can find ways to do so. Indeed, I have seen it happen again and again, in communities with far less money and resources than ours.