Working with Nature in Aotearoa New Zealand

Download or read book Working with Nature in Aotearoa New Zealand written by Friederike Gesing and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Working with nature - and not against it - is a global trend in coastal management. This ethnography of coastal protection follows the increasingly popular approach of "soft" protection to the Aotearoa New Zealand coast. Friederike Gesing analyses a political controversy over hard and soft protection measures, and introduces a growing community of practice involved in projects of working with nature. Dune restoration volunteers, coastal management experts, surfer-scientists, and Maori conservationists are engaged in projects ranging from do-it-yourself erosion control, to the reconstruction of native nature, and soft engineering "in concert with natural processes". With soft protection, Gesing argues, we can witness a new sociotechnical imaginary in the making.