Stronger together: Radical resilience in disaster recovery

It’s been a brutal few years for the Australian environment, with 2019’s Black Summer bushfires burning 5.5 million hectares of land, and northern New South Wales recently emerging from the grips of back-to-back record floods.

Whether flood or fire, the unifying factor in each extreme weather event has been community resilience and resourcefulness, with news feeds inundated with stories of regular people saving lives and managing the aftermath.

Conversely, there’s been no shortage of public criticism of the federal government’s response to environmental crises. From frustration over locals being left to bear the brunt of rescue efforts in Lismore, to a budget that cut overall spending on climate action by 35% over four years, there’s growing concern about Australia’s preparedness to face future natural disasters.

However, there might be gold among the ruins. Researchers at the Monash Fire to Flourish project are asking whether Australia’s environmental chaos has created the perfect storm for meaningful social, cultural and structural change in some of our most charred and exhausted towns.

Action borne of urgency

Associate Professor Briony Rogers and Dr Lara Werbeloff, Monash alumni and respective CEO and Director of Fire to Flourish, are adamant the rate of disaster occurrence necessitates a reimagined approach to recovery and resilience methods.

Working in partnership with four communities across New South Wales and Victoria affected by the 2019-20 summer bushfires, Fire to Flourish aims to support communities to lead their own recovery, co-create foundations for long-term resilience and wellbeing, and disrupt cycles of entrenched disadvantage.

Read more: Disaster survivors feel more prepared for the next one, but are often left out of planning

Dr Werbeloff says the project’s work is vital in light of Australia’s climate projections of more frequent and intense disasters, with fewer breaks between.

“The combination of intensity, frequency and severity means we’re facing a future of cascading disaster, which is fundamentally different to the way Australia’s approached things so far,” she says.

“We don't have the luxury of time for an extended period of recovery, and the need to build a foundation of long-term resilience is all the more important.”

From short-term recovery to long-term resilience

While resilience is slowly being recognised as a core strategic imperative within Australia’s recovery frameworks, we have a long way to go before it’s foundationally embedded.

Traditionally, in Australia 97% of all disaster funding has been spent on clean-up, with only 3% committed to mitigation, preparedness and resilience. In October 2021, the National Recovery and Resilience Agency stated its intention to shift the dial on these figures.

“We know we can’t prevent natural hazards,” said National Recovery and Resilience Agency Coordinator-General Shane L Stone AC QC, “but we can work closely with local communities, who often best understand the risks they face, to help them to prepare for, minimise the impact of, and bounce back from disasters. “

Following the money, and stopping

Unfortunately for disaster survivors, this sentiment has been undermined by the complexities of distributing much-needed funds and resources through traditional granting processes.

For example, the Emergency Response Fund (ERF) was created in December 2019, with the $4 billion resource intended to be invested in full and returns provided to disaster-affected communities.

The ERF was formed during the Black Summer bushfires and less than a year after significant flooding in north Queensland – and was in place when New South Wales grappled with floods in 2021.

However, despite returning almost $1 billion, public outrage sparked during Lismore’s consecutive “one-in-100-year” floods when it was highlighted that the ERF had budgeted just $150 million for disaster-mitigation projects, with much less than that actually spent.

Pivoting towards participatory granting

Apart from the lack of immediate investment in disaster resilience, the way funds have been historically distributed is an issue unto itself.

While disaster survivors continue to compete for funds through traditional granting processes, Fire to Flourish’s research has found this approach not only prevents those in need from accessing much-needed funds, it also hinders communities’ capacity to heal following a crisis.

“Traditional granting can disempower communities when it doesn’t enable them to spend money on things that are important in that place at that time,” says Associate Professor Rogers.

“The way granting tends to work now, someone removed from the recovery efforts decides the parameters of funding, and too often these parameters don’t line up with the needs of every community, or everyone within a community.

“Even within a single town, individual groups are competing against each other or competing with their local council to access funding from the same pool, which can create or exacerbate conflict. Just as obstructively, often the timing of the schemes just doesn’t align with what the town is ready for.”

As a result, Dr Werbeloff argues that a participatory granting approach puts more power in the hands of communities, building their long-term capacity to collectively determine their priorities.

She points to the outstanding results coming from the self-organising in towns such as Cobargo, where the community set up a trust that enabled it to develop its own process to support collective decision-making in local recovery efforts.

“By flipping the process on its head and giving disaster-affected towns a means of making choices that make sense to them, governments can build a pathway to agency, and let communities steer their own change.”

Bringing community leaders to the fore

According to Associate Professor Rogers, no one’s better-placed to lead resilience efforts than the people who’ve had their boots on the ground from the beginning.

“Community leaders have the lived experience of their environment before the disaster hit. They have the lived experience of their disaster. They know each other, they know their country, and they have the vision of themselves for the future. And so how could it be anyone but them?”

Supporting this argument, Fire to Flourish’s recent national survey, Out of the Ashes, revealed that while disaster survivors are often depicted as victims with reduced capacities, in reality they’re more likely to experience increased confidence in both their ability to withstand another catastrophe, and in the ability of their communities to survive future disasters.

“We saw evidence of post-traumatic growth, where individuals and communities that had gone through disaster had a stronger sense of resilience,” says Dr Werbeloff. “There will also be investment back into these communities in terms of infrastructure, housing, community connection and regenerating the natural environment, and there’s an opportunity to rebuild in a way that sets up this foundation for longer-term thriving. It can set communities on a different path.”

Indigenous voices at the core of resilience efforts

With this in mind, Fire to Flourish works alongside local leaders to ensure people who may be at risk of being marginalised are actively brought into resilience conversations.

This includes a targeted focus on engaging Indigenous perspectives and voices through an Indigenous Partnership Group, and equal pairings of Indigenous and non-Indigenous co-designers and facilitators.

“We’re taking the time to sit under the trees of the elders in our partner communities to understand their experiences, needs and aspirations,” says Associate Professor Rogers.

“The focus on relationships to Country and relationships to each other represent vital pathways for us to become more resilient to disaster.

“By holding space for healing and vision, we can set ourselves on the road to thriving together – truly together – into the future.”

 Fire to Flourish is a partnership between Monash University, the Paul Ramsay Foundation, Metal Manufactures Pty Ltd and The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI), with additional philanthropic support from the Lowy Foundation. Learn more about how Fire to Flourish is supporting community-led resilience building in its 2021 annual report.