It’s nine months since this valley was filled with smoke from a drought fuelled
fire
that burned through 2,000 hectares, including sections of a world heritage
listed rainforest.
The blaze was eventually put out by hundreds of volunteers working together
with their local brigades to clear containment lines.
“I remember feeling absolutely elated”.
“It was like the true test of how strong our community was, and I feel like we
passed with flying colours.”
But a bushfire burning a rainforest was something this community never expected
to experience.
It was a big wake up call to the reality of climate change.
It was just very real and very personal. And it made us want to really focus more
broadly around resilience a community and how we work together.
At a meeting in the village hall three months after the bushfire, around 100
people came together to brainstorm what it would take for the people of this
village to be ready and resilient in the face of any disaster
So, we were talking about more frequent drought, flood and fire events, and then
also potential disruption in food supply, water scarcity. The big global
and local issues related to climate change and increased crisis.
16-year old, high school student, Miriam Ellemor–Collins was one of the youngest
people at the resilience workshop.
“Yeah, I'm passionate about climate action and yeah I often feel overwhelmed
about
what's happening to the environment and not sure what I can do.
Miriam volunteered to lead a youth climate change action group who would
plant trees and task each other to reduce their carbon footprint in their
homes and beyond.
And I feel that this was one step in a direction where I could do something
that was active rather than do the talking side of it and I feel most
teenagers are going to feel the same way.
I reckon these will make a good chutney.
Fionn Quinlan and his water and food security group are educating people on
how to be independent of the town water supply and survive a drought. They’re
also co-ordinating a monthly food swap.
We wanted to trade and barter, we wanted to do things outside our fixed economy.
We’re also networking with our community, creating a stronger community
because we’re sharing our food, we share our water, we work together, and we all
grow stronger.
Another member of the community, Michael Murphy, is clearing and mapping old
logging tracks on private land.
These tracks in the red are the ones I cleared out.
We intend to try and get maps of all the properties and present them to the local
brigade, so that they've got our local knowledge in their hands.
Michael’s been consulting with John Hutchinson, Captain of The Channon
Brigade, who last month welcomed 16 new local volunteers into the ranks after
they completed their training.
Most brigades all around the state have been struggling to get more members for
years and years. So, it's great to get an influx of new blood.
The community has given themselves until 2030 to create disaster resilience but
just weeks after the workshop the unexpected happened.
Health authorities say there’s been another six confirmed cases of the
Coronavirus in New South Wales.
People in nearby towns started testing positive to COVID-19, putting the plan
for resilience to the test.
This was before any kind of lockdown measures happened and everyone was just
running out of hand sanitizer and we were really concerned with seeing what
was happening overseas. And we just wanted to make sure we could flatten the
curve here. And so we identified where in our community was the main sort of
people crossover points and we actually manufactured our own hand sanitizer to
put in bottles there with signs to really help our community to kind of
raise their awareness and be taking the precautions that we could at that time.
The group also rostered on people to shop and deliver, keeping those at risk,
safe at home.
For me it feels incredibly meaningful to be involved at a community level with
things that really matter. I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror or
look my children in the eyes and know that I hadn't done what I could.
Thank you.
It just wells up in me to do something bout it, or to be part of a solution.