New Zealand imports 100% of its refined fuel. The ongoing Strait of Hormuz crisis has already voided supply contracts across the region, and with onshore stocks thin, the window for community-level preparation is narrowing fast. A guide published by Wise Response – When the Trucks Stop: Mutual Aid Arrangements for a Fuel-Constrained Aotearoa New Zealand – lays out practical, low-cost steps to build community resilience right now.
Civil Defence Emergency Management was designed for acute, localised events like earthquakes and floods. A nationwide, open-ended fuel shortage is a different beast entirely, and government resources will be stretched managing hospitals, law enforcement, and essential freight corridors. Communities that wait for top-down assistance will wait too long.
Mutual aid is the answer – not charity, not volunteerism, but reciprocal exchange rooted in Aotearoa’s own traditions of manaakitanga, the marae system, and cooperative networks across Pasifika and migrant communities. According to the guide, here’s what your community can do, starting now.
1. Food – The Most Urgent Priority
When fuel stops flowing, urban supermarket shelves empty within 72 hours. The entire supply chain – trucks, refrigerated containers, distribution centres – runs on diesel. Securing local food is the single most important step any community can take to build resilience.
Direct farmer relationships
- Identify local farmers producing meat, vegetables, eggs, dairy, or grain
- Call one this week – introduce your community group and ask if they’d supply you directly in a crisis
- Document agreements: agreed prices, barter terms, pickup points, contact lists
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
- Join or establish a CSA where households pre-pay for a seasonal share of farm output
- Encourage multiple farms to form cooperative CSAs to diversify supply
- Organise bulk purchasing – one trip serving twenty households instead of twenty separate trips
Urban and backyard food production
- Identify vacant land in your area for community gardens
- Establish seed banks and nurseries now
- Run garden mentoring programmes – connect experienced growers with beginners
- Let your best-performing plants go to seed this season
- Look at school grounds as sites for larger productive gardens
Butchering and food preservation
- Identify community members with butchering, hunting, or processing skills
- Locate suitable facilities – even a clean shed with hooks and good knives
- Build knowledge of preservation methods that don’t require refrigeration: salting, smoking, drying, fermenting
Community kitchens and food hubs
- Centralised cooking is far more fuel-efficient than individual household cooking
- Marae, churches, halls, and schools can all serve as food hubs
- Community fridges and food rescue operations can be stood up within days
- Connect with existing food rescue networks to redirect surplus from retailers and growers
Seed saving
- Save seed from your best-adapted varieties as standard practice
- Establish or join a local seed library or exchange
- Contact organisations like the Koanga Institute for guidance
2. Water
New Zealand’s electricity grid is around 85% renewable, so reticulated water supply is less immediately threatened – but treatment chemicals still need to be transported, and maintenance crews need fuel to reach infrastructure.
- Assess your roof catchment potential – a 100sqm roof can yield 80,000–100,000 litres per year
- Install or collectively purchase rainwater tanks, first-flush diverters, and basic filtration
- Map your neighbourhood’s water sources: tanks, bores, springs, gravity-fed systems
- Stockpile basic purification supplies: ceramic filters, UV units, chlorine tablets
- Set up simple greywater diversion from sinks and showers to garden beds
3. Energy
The fuel crisis is primarily a liquid fuels crisis, not an electricity crisis. The priority is managing what still requires petrol or diesel.
- Identify who in your community has an EV and where solar-fed charging is available
- Establish informal EV car-sharing or ride-pooling arrangements
- Form a community firewood cooperative – contribute labour, share the output, prioritise vulnerable households
- Treat generators as shared community assets with agreed scheduling and fuel allocation
- Explore community solar and battery microgrid options for rural or end-of-line properties
4. Transport
No fuel means no private cars for most people. Rural communities face effective isolation.
- Set up a formal ride-sharing and trip consolidation system now – a WhatsApp group, a shared noticeboard, a phone tree
- Identify community transport providers and volunteer drivers in your area
- Invest in bicycles and, where possible, electric cargo bikes (capable of carrying 100kg+)
- Establish a community bike workshop with shared tools and repair skills
- Organise walking buses for school runs and local delivery circuits
5. Health and Wellbeing
Community health – GP access, pharmacy supply, aged care, disability support – will be disrupted even if hospitals remain prioritised.
- Upskill community members in first aid, wound care, and mental health first aid
- Know who in your community relies on regular medication, oxygen, dialysis, or mobility equipment – plan proactively with them
- Work with local pharmacies where possible to establish small buffer stocks of essential medications
- Schedule regular check-ins on isolated or elderly neighbours
- Maintain community meals and structured activities – social connection is as important as physical needs
6. Communication
Digital infrastructure is likely to hold in a fuel crisis, but mobile towers have limited battery backup and maintenance requires transport.
- Establish a communication channel now: WhatsApp, Signal, a phone tree, or a physical noticeboard at the local dairy, marae, or school
- Identify a physical coordination hub – a community hall, marae, or library – that everyone knows about
- Consider low-power FM community radio for local information broadcast
- Look into Meshtastic LoRa mesh radio devices for text communication that requires no cellular or internet infrastructure
7. Start This Week
The guide’s call to action is simple:
- Call a meeting to discuss how you can build a resilient community – even five people is enough
- Map your assets – EV, large garden, butchering skills, medical training, generator, rainwater tank, chainsaw
- Map your vulnerabilities – who lives alone, depends on medication, has small children, has no transport, is financially precarious
- Contact a farmer – one phone call this week
- Set up a communication channel – WhatsApp, Signal, phone tree, or noticeboard
- Book a follow-up meeting – momentum dies without follow-through
- Pass this on – share with three people, print a copy for your noticeboard, marae, church, or school staffroom