Affordance Lost: The Diminishing Weight of Recreation in New Zealand Legislation

Gather to your mind a gestalt of New Zealand. It's fair to say that many facets of outdoor recreation feature as core themes in your life as it has throughout Aotearoa's brief human history.

Mountain trails, wild rivers, quiet spaces, bike paths, neighbourhood reserves, and beaches have historically been central to New Zealand identity across all demographics.

This piece explores a long-running conversation with a colleague named Maree about what it takes to tell the story of a place - a river for example, in such a way that the narrative available to decision-makers is complete and clear-eyed.

The core concern centres on recent legislative changes. The perspectives of the law and social science tell very different stories, and for a long time in Aotearoa some level of social science has been heard. Unfortunately, change has come to resource management in New Zealand that does not honour the stories of place.

The loss of protection for places meaningful for the wellbeing they produce is not a fun story to tell, but an important one nevertheless.

A PDF of the full article "Affordance Lost" was published in the Resource Management Journal, November 2025.