03/06/2026
Kia ora whānau, the story of increased weather events for Wairoa and indeed Aotearoa was I hope delivered yesterday on the invitation and support of the EU Asia-Pacific conference in Jakarta. I was invited to speak about the impacts of climate mobility through displacement of our communities due to the increased weather disruption that we are experiencing alongside countries from all over the world. Even as I made the flight to Jakarta I was reading the Metservice updates with several weather warnings throughout the country. So, as I prepare to make my way home I wanted to post up this photo and the speech I delivered on behalf of our community and country as the only New Zealander in attendance.
Opening with a karanga acknowledging the mana whenua of Jakarta and the tribes of the world. Explaining later to the representative of Jakarta that the mihi was to her people as the First Nations of their country. Speech starts following pepeha.
My name is Michelle McIlroy.
I am Māori, and come from Wairoa, a town on the east coast of Aotearoa New Zealand.
For many people, climate change is discussed as a future risk.
For us, it has become a lived reality.
In less than 24 hours, more than 500 mls of rain fell across our district in 2023.
You will see my home surrounded by floodwater, followed by a photograph of my town in flood.
Wairoa is a predominantly Māori community. We are ahi kā – the people who keep the home fires burning. We know where our umbilical cords are buried, and where we belong.
Overnight, many families became displaced. More than half the homes in our community were uninsured.
The power failed, our town water supply was damaged and communications failed. Roads were damaged and bridges were washed away.
Entire communities became isolated. Fuel nor food initially could not be bought in by road but helicopter, and we had one supermarket for 8000 people.
When the flood reached our home, I realised there was no way to call for help. So, with my two daughters, I got in my vehicle and drove through our neighbourhood sounding the horn, waking people while they slept.
That event taught me something important.
Modern communities are highly dependent on systems that we assume will always work.
Yet while those systems failed, something else endured – our community relationships and our traditional houses, Marae.
Across Wairoa, initially our community hall and then marae became centres of refuge, coordination, food distribution and support.
There was no formal plan directing every action, but the foundations of resilience already existed within our communities.
That experience changed how I think about climate resilience.
Resilience is not simply recovering after disaster.
It is having the capacity to endure disruption while maintaining community wellbeing.
Today, climate mobility is becoming an increasingly important global conversation – I mean that’s why we are here right!
Governments are discussing relocation, managed retreat and movement away from areas of increasing risk.
These are important conversations.
But for Indigenous peoples, mobility is never simply about moving people.
Our relationship with land is ancestral.
Our rivers, mountains, marae and cultural landscapes are woven into our identity through genealogy – I am also here because of our South Pacific genealogy with our Pacific brothers and sisters.
For Indigenous peoples, displacement is not only physical.
It can also be cultural, social, political and spiritual.
Many Indigenous peoples have already experienced generations of dispossession through colonisation and forced disconnection from ancestral lands.
If climate mobility is designed without Indigenous leadership, there is a real risk that adaptation policies could repeat those patterns under a new name.
That is why Indigenous self-determination must sit at the centre of climate mobility planning.
But I also believe climate mobility funding presents an opportunity.
Before we ask how communities might move, we should also ask how communities can strengthen their ability to remain safely connected to place.
What would it mean if marae were equipped with solar energy and battery systems that continued operating when the electricity network failed, if rainwater harvesting systems providing potable emergency water security when town supplies were compromised?
These are not only adaptation measures.
They are resilience measures.
They strengthen local capability, reduce dependence on fragile systems, and give communities greater choices about their future.
For me, the goal of climate mobility funding should not simply be to help communities move but it should also help communities maintain the ability to stay.
Because resilience is not just about surviving a disaster.
It is about ensuring our people retain their identity, dignity, culture and authority in the face of change.
If we get this right, climate mobility can support Indigenous futures.
If we get it wrong, it risks becoming another chapter in a much older story of dispossession.
Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa.
