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the australian farmer
Community connections: The key to disaster resilience
As Australian farmers know, extreme weather is part of living on the land. Dr Margaret Moreton says our focus must go beyond identifying risk to increasing the resilience of people and communities.
understanding the systemic na- ture of the risk, and protecting that which is valuable to us. Building disaster resilience re- quires consideration of a multi- tude of factors that go far beyond what the weather is doing. While disasters are triggered by natural phenomena, disasters them- selves are not natural. Physical considerations such as a prop- erty that backs onto a high fuel load forest or is on a floodplain certainly increase disaster risk, but there is still more at play. Our resilience and, inversely, our vulnerability to disasters is influenced by intangible con- siderations such as our values, choices, attitudes, and behav- iours. These considerations look different for each individual and each community. For those working in the agri-
tion from the bushfires of the summer of 2019-20, followed by consecutive rainfall and flood- ing events in 2020 and 2021, and finally the extensive flooding experienced in 2022, was wide- spread. This affected rural prop- erties, and agricultural produce, influenced economic markets, and impacted people, families, and communities. Those affected are at the beginning of a long re- covery journey, often delayed and complicated by COVID-19. Risk management and ex- treme weather are by no means new to the Australian agricultural industry. There are few sectors so intimately entwined with the forces of nature. In accepting that these events will continue to occur, and indeed worsen, our focus must go beyond identifying risk to increasing our resilience,
It is widely recognised that ex- treme weather events and the disasters they often cause, have become more prevalent, can occur concurrently, and have significant, long-term impacts on people, communities, the environment, and the economy. Climate change is predicted to increase their frequency while also amplifying the impacts on Australians with anticipated longer and more intense fire sea- sons, more extreme heat events, more severe cyclones, and an increased likelihood of cyclones moving further south. These adverse weather events - those we have experienced and those that are expected - take a tremendous toll on Australians, especially our agricultural indus- try and farming population. The devastation and disrup-
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