The Goulburn Murray Resilience Strategy, first prepared in 2020, has recently been updated to reflect new challenges and other emerging factors in the region.
The Resilience Strategy has been developed by the Goulburn Murray Resilience Taskforce, which consists of community, business, university and government agency representatives.
Taskforce chairperson Sarah Thomson said the strategy’s primary goal was a more resilient Goulburn Murray region.
“The Taskforce is charged with making sense of a dynamic environment and advocating for resilience-building actions across government, business and community,” Ms Thomson said.
She said the updated strategy remained focused on eight resilience principles and five intervention streams, which were identified in the 2020 strategy.
“The resilience principles were designed to help understand the mindset required to face a challenging future which included less water, a more volatile climate and compounding environmental challenges.
“This region has experienced and will continue to experience significant change as the effects of climate change present both problems but also big opportunities,” Ms Thomson said.
She said in updating the strategy, the group re-examined what real resilience looked like and how achieving it would benefit the region.
“Resilience is not about individuals. It is about people and organisations coming together to agree on a plan to navigate the future.”
The chairperson said the taskforce had tapped into the latest thinking around true resilience and how it could fortify regions.
“We have worked with universities to produce research, engaged in advocacy with government, worked with local leadership programs and brought some of the best minds in the region and indeed Australia together to discuss how to create opportunity.”
She said the group was part of an Australian National University study that contributed to the international "Go Green" research project, which looked at how communities around the world navigated the shift to zero carbon, circular economies.
“All of this work is helping to put our region on the front foot, from where it can anticipate, adapt to and thrive in response to inevitable change.”
The Goulburn Murray Resilience Strategy update and the original strategy can be found at:
Goulburn Murray Resilience Taskforce members Sarah Thomson and Linda Nieuwenhuizen.
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