New Zealand: Creativity within Constraints

Often entrepreneurship is viewed as arising out of a world of endless opportunities. As a geographer I think of entrepreneurship as creativity within the constraints of place and distance, shaped by human intentions. It is a form of resilience.

I have been visiting New Zealand for more than twenty years, having read about the country prior to my sabbatical there in 2002, and continuing to see the changes in the country on periodic trips ever since then. Time has a way of clarifying overarching trends that I have seen on the ground. On my 7th, and most recent trip, I was struck by the creativity and entrepreneurship that is evident in New Zealand and how it is shaping the landscape, economy, and culture.

The major economic challenges of New Zealand are two-fold: low population which results in limited local markets; long distance from global markets which results in high transportation costs for goods.

Prior to the UKs joining the EU, New Zealand used several strategies to survive. First, it had special trade relations with the UK, and secondly, government policy made it difficult to move capital out of the country. I remember talking with someone who had had a sabbatical in New Zealand in the 60s and found it almost impossible to take their money from the sale of a car, at the end of their time, back to the U.S.  With these two strategies New Zealand continued to produce the same products—primary agricultural products—as many other places in the world.

I found an a diagram in an old file recently that was from The Economist, drawing from New Zealand government statistics, that showed the state of trade and products in 1963-64. New Zealand produced little that was unique to New Zealand and the U.K. was the primary trade partner, located literally on the other side of the world. In fact, I would guess that the U.K. was producing the same products that it was importing from New Zealand.

On the eve of the U.K. joining the E.U., New Zealand’s economy was dominated by agriculture as the top industry, followed by others that I would guess were internally focused and thus limited by the population of the country.

https://www.stats.govt.nz/tools/which-industries-contributed-to-new-zealands-gdp/

Once the U.K. joined the E.U., such protected trade relations with New Zealand ended. Think of waking up one morning and realizing that you no longer had protection trade barriers from the U.K., and in fact, you were in the South Pacific on the other side of the world from the U.K. and left competing in the world market for the production of sheep, wool, and butter (you are too far away from everyone to ship milk). You may have also paused and looked around at the lack of native bush, all cut back to create pasture and try to recreate Britain in the Pacific.

Reality began to change for the country. Sheep started to be shipped to Iran. And guess what? Other trade partners could be developed who were much closer.

This was the beginning of the transformation of New Zealand. In graduate school I remember an article that I read in land economics that argued that resources do not exist apart from human intentions.  For example, until iron ore deposits became used to create iron and steel, the deposits were not resources.  Likewise, with everything around us. New Zealand had to experience a time of anomie before its citizens started to look around themselves and ask—who are we? What do we have that is unique to this place that the world might need or want that is valuable enough to enable it to be shipped long distances? Thus began the journey.

Part of the journey for New Zealanders was a cultural. The country was constrained by its commitments to the Maori community via the Waitangi Treaty. At the same time the country was turning inward to explore its uniqueness, it also was starting to come to terms with its commitments. This commitment became a resource of sorts. The discipline of engaging with the Maori, who retained stewardship responsibilities for the health of ecosystem, began to shape the way New Zealand saw its resources and understood its unique ecology. European New Zealanders began to change their values and perceptions of themselves. Today everyone associates the Maori haka with New Zealand rugby, a somewhat superficial expression of a deeper shift in identity within New Zealand.

The landscape has changed along with the culture. When I visited in the spring of 2024 I was struck by the increased number of native plants I saw in gardens and landscapes across New Zealand. These plants are essential for the survival of native birds which can be endangered due to loss of native plants and due to the introduction of mammals into an ecosystem. New Zealand had no native mammals.

New Zealand has become an experimental testing ground for conservation. I visited one such innovative site—Zealandia—within the city of Wellington. Zealandia had only started to be developed when I first lived in Wellington in 2002. Now in 2024, it had become a reality: “Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne is the world’s first fully-fenced urban ecosanctuary, with an extraordinary 500-year vision to restore the valley’s forest and freshwater ecosystems as closely as possible to pre-human state” (https://www.visitzealandia.com). The area, in the middle of Wellington, had been fenced with a pest-free fence, had native bush restored, and had become a refuge out of which native birds spread. The project is also one creative problem-solving and learning. Is it habitat or pests that limit the native bird population? Can we create safe zones out of which biodiversity can spread? It models for the community what flourishing looks like and spreads the desire for native plants and habitat. Places like Zealandia have become models for the world on what is possible within urban environments, all done in collaboration with the local Maori community.

Zealandia: Weta (insect), Te Ara (lizard), Takahe (endangered bird)

New Zealand conservation efforts, policy structures, and efforts, all in collaboration with Maori communities, have drawn visitors to New Zealand. But what resources does New Zealand have that can produce products to sell on the global market? With the rise of China and demand for milk products, New Zealand has moved toward dairy production over against sheep. New Zealand has year-round pastures and a market in the Pacific. Even with that, the milk has to be turned into powdered milk for shipment, adding some manufacturing value to it prior to export. New Zealand has a unique soil and climate region around the Bay of Plenty. The characteristics of this area have led to the development of kiwi fruit production. Kiwi have the ability to be stored for some time and shipped long distances. This industry has developed with an eye toward the Japanese market which demands high quality fruit that is given as a gift. New Zealand growers support a collaborative effort to maintain quality, branding, and the development of creative new strains of kiwis through Zespri, which originated as the marketing board for kiwi fruit in 1988. Zespri is now a global brand.

The Kanaka tree, native to New Zealand, is yet another example of something that has only recently become a resource. Kanaka honey has been found to have medicinal qualities, particularly anti-bacterial ones. The Kanaka honey industry has grown in the past 20+ years to produce medical products, and quality-controlled and measured Kanaka honey. Today you can find Kanaka honey at Costco at a high price. The native bush has become a resource.

On the eve of our return from my sabbatical to New Zealand in December of 2002, the second of the Lord of the Rings film series had its grand opening downtown Wellington. In fact, Elijah Wood was on our plane as we left New Zealand the next morning. If there is any product that has a global market with limited costs in transportation, surely it is in digital arts. The film industry has grown out of Wētā Workshop, founded in the late 1980s to produce creatures and makeup affects, and expanded into digital media. The company was used to support the production of The Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson, a New Zealander who used local crews and locations for the film trilogy. This collaboration has grown a collection of firms in the Wellington area that are involved in film production. Capital comes from abroad and creative talent is drawn to New Zealand for its opportunities and its natural environment as well as its unusual visual scenery. Worldwide collaborations are created through digital means with virtually no transportation costs. The film industry is but one digitally-based industry that has made New Zealand its base. The costs of distance have been minimized.  Time zones are still a challenge 😊

The transformation of New Zealand can be seen in the production statistics for 2020. Professional, scientific, and technical services dominate. Primary economic activity like agriculture is no longer in the top 10 industries.

In the 2024 March trade statistics, the transformation of New Zealand into a Pacific nation is clear. Only the U.K. remains as an export destination outside of the Pacific Rim, and not a top one. Imports largely come from the Pacific Rim as well (https://statisticsnz.shinyapps.io/trade_dashboard/).

I visited Christchurch in 2002 and enjoyed the city which is very British in flavor. I returned in 2008. My most recent trip included Christchurch as well, but it was a very different city this time. From early September 2010 to February 2011, a series of earthquake tremors devastated the city, with the largest registering a magnitude of 7.1 on the Richter scale.

Research on natural hazards is starting to focus on how to build buildings that not only preserve human life, but also can be brought back into use as quickly as possible. This new perspective is focused on the resilience of communities. How fast can they spring back? No doubt, New Zealand will become a testing ground for this concept. Afterall, hardly a place exists in New Zealand that does not experience a threat from some form of natural hazard!

I was fascinated by one example of resilience we saw in Christchurch—the Cardboard Cathedral. Christchurch Cathedral was one of the structures, well-loved and central to the identity of the city, that was damaged by the earthquake and has yet to be restored. What was quickly built as a temporary home was the Christchurch Cardboard Cathedral. What do you have for materials around you? New Zealand grows trees for paper exports. The Cathedral is made out of cement, cardboard, shipping containers, steel, and local wood.

I have come to see the Cardboard Cathedral as a symbol of New Zealand’s ability to be creative within the constraint of transportation costs related to distance. The country has done this through learning to be attentive to what is around them and being intentional about identifying resources that arise out of the unique attributes of the place they live. This is resilience.