People and place: the population on the eve of Tuia – Encounters 250

Early in March 2018 Statistics New Zealand Tatauranga Aotearoa undertook an official count of how many people and dwellings there are in Aotearoa New Zealand, te tatauranga ā-ture o ngā tāngata e noho ana Aotearoa me o rātou whare noho. The results from this census will begin appearing around June 2018, with most of the detailed analysis being completed by mid-2019. In October 2019 we will mark a very significant 250th anniversary of “the early meetings of Māori and Europeans when Captain James Cook and Tahitian chief and navigator, Tupaia, arrived in 1769 – a pivotal moment in New Zealand History when two great traditions of voyaging and exploration (Pacific and European) met on and off the coast of Aotearoa” What does the population of Aotearoa New Zealand look like 250 years after these initial encounters? In this presentation I will introduce some of the contemporary characteristics of Aotearoa’s population to provide a context for some of the other presentations in this University of Auckland-Tai Tokerau Campus series which is supported by the Royal Society Te Apārangi. My focus will be on international migration – a modern version of the voyaging and encounters that Cook and Tupaia’s visits 250 years ago initiated. In the course of the presentation I will make reference to Northland’s Te Tai Tokerau’s population around 2018 and some of the distinctive features of this region’s contemporary demography. Professor Richard (Dick) Bedford QSO, FRSNZ is a population geographer who specializes in migration research and since the mid-1960s he has been researching processes of population movement and demographic change in the Asia-Pacific region. His major research interests are circular forms of population mobility within and between countries, immigration policy, and the relationships between population movement and social and economic transformation in rural and urban areas in New Zealand and the Pacific. He is currently working on implications for New Zealand and Australia of population developments and migration trends in the Asia-Pacific region over the next 30 to 40 years, including the impact of climate change on migration. University of Auckland's International Speaker Series: 14th March in the Whangarei Central Library, 6pm - 7pm

Professor Richard Bedford, Emeritus Professor, University of Waikato and Auckland University of Technology President, Royal Society Te Apārangi

14/03/2018 5:00:00 AM