East gippsland recovering together (#34)
Becky Hemming
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- East Gippsland Catchment Management Authority, Bairnsdale, VICTORIA, Australia
- East Gippsland is known for its natural habitats and beautiful remote areas. The region is made up of 83% public land. In summer 2019/20 more than 50% of East Gippsland (1.1 million hectares) was burnt. The collaboration and coordination of government agencies, together with community groups was one of the notable experiences I have been involved in when it has come to recovery efforts, and that’s what I want to share.
- 15 NRM partner agencies and community groups took a collaborative and coordinated approach to bushfire recovery. To formalise the process a committee was arranged. The role of the committee is to coordinate engagement, onground works and reporting across the environmental recovery program.
- Although it’s a bit more effort, and at the time, all we wanted to do was get on with it and get the job done. Working together to listen and learn from each other on what our priorities are; challenges we face; and helping each other, resulted in us collectively providing better support to communities and improved responses / outcomes to environmental impacts and changes following the bushfires.
- We are likely to see more of these environmental impacts at a larger scale and more often across Australia. Setting up governance frameworks and partnership arrangements, to create networks around trust, respect and honesty before the disaster comes is essential and has worked for us.
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