Working with Nature in Aotearoa New Zealand: An ethnography of coastal protection

Abstract

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. It 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, the author argues, we can witness a new sociotechnical imaginary in the making.