Building capacity in northern Australian communities

How can we build capacity and community resilience in northern Australia? This was the focus of the Northern Australia Research Engagement Forum, hosted by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC in conjunction with Charles Darwin University (CDU) on 12 November 2020.

The forum was a hybrid event—with an in-person conference room available for people who could be in Darwin and a live online broadcast for the rest of Australia to tune in. With 57 people online and 24 people in physical attendance, the forum provided 11 researchers in Darwin and around Australia with an opportunity to share the findings of their CRC projects that connect local and national developments in research and emergency management in  Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia. A smaller, instensive workshop with researchers and end-users was also held the previous day.

The event was opened by Adj Prof Jeremy Russell-Smith (CDU), research leader of the Enhancing remote north Australian community resilience, Tools supporting fire management in northern Australia, and Northern Australian bushfire and natural hazard training projects, who gave an overview of the northern Australia focused core research projects and briefly explained the two phases that have been conducted to help build community resilience in northern Australia.

 “The research we’ve done over the past seven years in northern Australia is not just about responding to big events, it’s about thinking about preparatory actions and planning that needs to be undertaken throughout the entire year,” Adj Prof Russel-Smith said.

Dr Andrew Edwards (CDU), researcher for the Tools supporting fire management in northern Australia project, gave a detailed explanation and tour of the primary project output, the Savanna Monitoring and Evaluation Reporting Framework (SMERF), which provides web-based, savanna-wide fire mapping to assist land managers across northern Australia with fire planning across large areas of land. He also described the main fire management goals in northern Australia, which includes:

• reducing the severe late season wildfires
• reducing the frequency of fire and increasing the variety of areas that burn from year to year
• increasing the amount of ‘long unburnt’ vegetation
• increasing burn patchiness and enhancing the mosaic effect of burns
• reducing the size of burnt patches
• implementing early prescribed burns that effectively pull up or reduce wildfire
• natural and cultural asset protection.

The Fire surveillance and hazard mapping project leaders, Dr Karin Reinke and Prof Simon Jones from RMIT University, explained their research into earth observations for fire detection, including detecting and understanding hotspots using the latest geostationary satellite-based earth observation systems and the Himawari satellite. Their presentation was followed by CDU’s Dr Peter Jacklyn who gave an update on the new funding for the North Australia and Rangelands Fire Information.

Dr Kamaljit Sangha (CDU), researcher for the Enhancing remote north Australian community resilience and Tools supporting fire management in northern Australia projects, gave a presentation on costing natural disasters and assessing cost-effective community solutions, using the World Bank Framework for assessing natural hazard-related losses—direct (public infrastructure, public, private and business buildings, loss of ecosystems and their services, cultural assets, human lives) and indirect (business disruption, communication and network/computer disruption, loss of work and public services, poor health and emotional wellbeing, loss of public amenity, and loss of water, electricity and gas services).

To offer lessons in effective on-ground engagement in emergency management, Otto Campion Bulmaniya, an Indigenous elder from Ramingining in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory and Ted Gondarra, on behalf of clan leaders at Galiwin'ku off the coast of Arnhem Land, gave a presentation on building strong emergency responses, community resilience and cultural authority in fire and land management.

“This project allowed us to make two trips – one here in Darwin with southern Australia peoples visiting, and one in Brisbane at an emergency headquarter – to share our stories. I facilitated rangers and traditional owners to come and look at our training,” Otto said about the Northern Australian bushfire and natural hazard training project.

“Working together is really hard but we have protocols to follow and there are a lot of promises in closing the gap. We can share our stories to turn them into actions.”

Curtin University’s Dr Patrick Dunlop gave an introduction to the Workforce 2030 project, a utilisation stream of the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project. This stream aims to provide an overview of the research foundation for future workforce planning and strategy developments within emergency services organisations through two phases:

1. the changing landscape in the 2021-2030 decade
2. implication for volunteers and paid emergency management personnel.

CRC CEO Dr Richard Thornton gave an update on the ending of the CRC and future research opportunities with the new funding, particularly in regard to natural hazards research that has delivered and will continue to deliver value for northern Australia.

The final speaker for the day was Ricky Archer from the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance, who introduced the new Cultural Land Management project proposal, which aims to set new priorities to enable better on-ground outcomes, and increase representation in different program areas that are reflective of current Indigenous land and sea management.

The full recording of the forum is available to watch in nine parts on the CRC Hazard Channel. Watch all nine parts below.