Environment Canterbury is congratulating the Canterbury Mayoral Forum on the release of its updated wellbeing overview, a fantastic document that will be a valuable resource over the next three years.

The wellbeing overview includes high-level information on the current state of the region and trends.

The document paints a picture for the Waitaha community about what’s going on across the takiwa/region.

The wellbeing overview was first published in 2019 and has been updated in recent months and published today. There has been some change in the last three years – a mixture of both positive and negative depending on what areas you’re looking at.

Of course, the major event has been the COVID-19 pandemic. While the impact of the pandemic on wellbeing, including border and lockdown controls, is yet to be fully understood, some indicators provided in the overview give insight into the short-term impacts of the pandemic e.g. on visitor arrivals.

We also know that the impact of COVID-19 on regional economies has been varied. Canterbury’s underlying activity in the manufacturing, construction and agricultural sectors has provided some protection on the regional economy from COVID-19 impacts. The impact on tourism has also been more significant in other regions.

Other highlights in the document include:

• Information on Canterbury’s five main climate zones and the impacts from climate change
• Details of natural hazards including a breakdown in the asset cost and benefit value of river control, flood protection and land drainage schemes across the region
• Highlighting major infrastructure projects that are either proposed, in progress or have been recently completed e.g. a new $344 million Antarctica research base to be constructed in Timaru before being transported to Scott Base
• Canterbury was the second highest emitter of greenhouse gases, contributing to 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand (data from 2019, latest available).

The 2022 wellbeing overview can be found at Canterbury Mayoral Forum (canterburymayors.org.nz).