Regional economic transformation: Changing land and resource access on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island

Abstract

The West Coast region of New Zealand has experienced significant structural economic changes since the 1980s. These changes have been a result of state imposed land use restrictions that limited productivist activities such as logging and mining, which in turn have been overlain by the effects of changes in national and global resource demand. This has led to both job loss and local resentment to what is seen to be external political and environmental interference in the region. Such changes overlay on-going boom-and-bust cycles experienced in the region’s resource dependent communities and the state’s pursuit of neo-liberalism from the 1980s, leading to the loss of state support and employment in the region. Regional path-dependence and ‘lock-in’ centred on productivist activities and the slow realisation of the need to diversify the economy have not helped. The region has under-performed in comparison with national trends economically and demographically reflecting and reinforcing local path dependence. The gradual growth of the service and tourism economies marks a new use for land resources and slow structural economic change. However, in the absence of governance processes that allow for collaborative planning to resolve conflicts over future trajectories for the region, conflicts over land uses, resources and access are likely to persist.