
The paper examines community benefits provided by an established community garden following a major earthquake and discusses possible implications for community garden planning and design in disaster-prone cities. Recent studies show that following extreme storm events community gardens can supply food, enhance social empowerment, provide safe gathering spots, and restorative practices, to remind people of normality. However, the beneficial role played by community gardens following earthquakes is less well known. To fill this gap, the study examines the role played by a community garden in Christchurch, New Zealand, following the 2010/2011 Canterbury Earthquakes. The garden's role is evaluated based on a questionnaire-based survey and in-depth interviews with gardeners, as well as on data regarding the garden use before and after the earthquakes. Findings indicate the garden helped gardeners cope with the post-quake situation. The garden served as an important place to de-stress, share experiences, and gain community support. Garden features that reportedly supported disaster recovery include facilities that encourage social interaction and bonding such as central meeting and lunch places and communal working areas.
The lived reality of the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes and its implications for the Waimakariri District, a small but rapidly growing district (third tier of government in New Zealand) north of Christchurch, can illustrate how community well-being, community resilience, and community capitals interrelate in practice generating paradoxical results out of what can otherwise be conceived as a textbook ‘best practice’ case of earthquake recovery. The Waimakariri District Council’s integrated community based recovery framework designed and implemented post-earthquakes in the District was built upon strong political, social, and moral capital elements such as: inter-institutional integration and communication, participation, local knowledge, and social justice. This approach enabled very positive community outputs such as artistic community interventions of the urban environment and communal food forests amongst others. Yet, interests responding to broader economic and political processes (continuous central government interventions, insurance and reinsurance processes, changing socio-cultural patterns) produced a significant loss of community capitals (E.g.: social fragmentation, participation exhaustion, economic leakage, etc.) which simultaneously, despite local Council and community efforts, hindered community well-being in the long term. The story of the Waimakariri District helps understand how resilience governance operates in practice where multi-scalar, non-linear, paradoxical, dynamic, and uncertain outcomes appear to be the norm that underpins the construction of equitable, transformative, and sustainable pathways towards the future.
A man mounting signs about Community Chess on the wall around Gap Filler's Community Chess Board.
Summary of oral history interview with Michelle Whitaker about her experiences of the Canterbury earthquakes.
The Lyttelton Harbour Information Centre's "Community Earthquake Update" bulletin, published on Friday 26 August 2011.
The "Lyttelton Harbour Review" newsletter for 17 February 2013, produced by the Lyttelton Harbour Information Centre.
A story submitted by Ginny Larsen to the QuakeStories website.
A story submitted by Sarah to the QuakeStories website.
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 29 July 2011
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 14 October 2011
A video of a presentation by Margaret Moreton during the Community and Social Recovery Stream of the 2016 People in Disasters Conference. The presentation is titled, "Community and Social Service Organisations in Emergencies and Disasters in Australia and New Zealand".
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 19 July 2013
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 1 November 2013
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 22 July 2011
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 20 July 2012
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 24 February 2012
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 22 December 2012
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 30 September 2011
Summary of oral history interview with Coralie Winn about her experiences of the Canterbury earthquakes.
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 21 June 2013
A photograph of community members giving feedback on the Sumner master plan.
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 5 July 2013
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 21 February 2014
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 13 June 2014
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 23 May 2014
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 25 October 2013
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 31 October 2013
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 13 September 2013
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 21 November 2013
A copy of the CanCERN online newsletter published on 19 August 2011