51OctOber 27 2012 www.listener.co.nz

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area. The island’s reputation as bleak and windswept, shrouded in cloud and icy cold, is undeserved. It is tem-perate with rare frosts, and although cloud is apparently common, I was blessed with three days of sunshine with an occasional fast-moving front.

The island’s tiny population – fewer than 500 people (with a few on neighbouring Pitt Island) – make a living from fishing, farming and a small but growing involvement in tourism. “Grey nomads” are the main market, those ticking off their bucket list of destinations and enjoying the spectacular plant, bird and sea life. There is fishing and even wild-sheep hunting.

Population decline is a major worry for islanders and the New Zealand Government alike; the drift to Aus-tralia is evident on the Chathams, too. Generating jobs is tough in a place where the cost of running a business is high and the local market tiny.

However, the Chathams have suf-

fered population decline in the past, resiliently recovering from disease, disaster and deprivation, and its lead-ers are working to secure a healthy future.

Two thousand Moriori lived on the Chathams in the early 1800s, having arrived up to 900 years earlier. After suffering brutally at the hands of both Pakeha and Maori invaders, their numbers fell to just 12 by 1900, according to Michael King’s book A Land Apart. Their history and treas-ures are preserved at a beautiful and unusual marae.

Just as New Zealand suffers from its remoteness, the islands pay dearly for being so far from markets

and resources. Freight and energy

are huge components of the price of everything for sale on the island, so everyday items can cost at least twice as much as comparable goods in New Zealand.

A small jar of peanut butter at the general store is more than $10, and a long black coffee at a local cafe is nearly $7. Islanders fork out four times what other Kiwis pay for electricity because of a heavy depend-ence on diesel that can only partly be offset by wind power. It costs more to fly to Wellington, Auckland or Christchurch than it does to fly from New Zealand to anywhere in Australia.

The islands are in urgent need of improved infrastructure and capital investment to remain viable – let alone prosper.

Just as with New Zealand, the best way of ensuring a bright future is to build critical mass through developing agriculture and industry – including tourism – that will in turn boost the population.

To achieve that the Chathams will need injections of money from the Government, Ngati Mutunga and Moriori treaty settlements, and through private investment in new enterprises.

New Zealand has always needed overseas capital to grow the economy, and so does the Chathams. The islands’ additional challenge will be to use that investment to build a sus-tainable base for future generations.

They have the skills, energy and determination. With wise shepherd-ing of resources and a fair division of the cake, there will be Chatham Islanders for another 1000 years. l

Tyranny of distance

New Zealand is one of the world’s most isolated nations and the Chatham Islands are our remotest outpost. There are many parallels between the economic and busi-

ness issues faced by the Chathams and the broader New Zealand community.

On a recent visit I was unprepared for the dra-matic and diverse beauty of Chatham Island, the main island, and wowed by the welcome. But some welcomes are tempered with suspicion towards strangers as a result of the boom and bust experi-ences of generations of islanders.

From the early days of sealing and whaling, and more recently crayfish and orange roughy, some believe locals haven’t benefited from the islands’ bounty. New Zealand, it is said, has the Chathams to thank for creating the world’s fourth-largest exclusive economic zone.

Chatham Island is about 90,000ha (roughly a third bigger than Lake Taupo), dominated by Te Whanga Lagoon, which covers almost a fifth of the

the chathams’ economy is a microcosm of New Zealand’s problems of isolation.

The islands pay dearly for being so far from markets and resources.

From left, Pitt Island, Chatham Island and an endangered chatham island robin.

by Linda SandersMoney