This weekend I facilitated the first of a two-part workshop series on climate change adaptation in Mundaring. Supported by the EMRC, the Shire of Mundaring is engaging with the community on climate change.

Climate change is a huge issue for local government. While many authorities are developing adaptation plans, this is the first community consultation in Western Australia, at least that I’m aware of.

As part of the workshop, we had Dianne Katscherian from the Department of Health give an excellent presentation on climate change and health in WA. We’ll be incorporating some of her information into our risk assessment framework, for example the need to consider chronic health issues as well death and injury in consequence scales.

During the workshop, I found the discussion and the comments from members of the community quite fascinating. At one one of the tables, we were discussing the prospects for Mundaring in the future based on the climate change scenario we were reviewing. At first the vision for Mundaring in 2070 was seemed quite negative. Just one more dormitory suburb at the end of highway leading out from Perth. A hot and dry place, prone to summer bushfires, with some of natural environment that attracted people to the area irrevocably lost to climate change.

But another participant, when reflecting on how Mundaring had changed in the last 60 years helped me see a more positive vision. He suggested in the past Mundaring had been very self-sufficient with more facilities and amenities in the area so there was less need to travel to Perth. One of the elected members at the workshop described the community in Mundaring as being resilient and used to living with threat of bushfire. I could start to imagine Mundaring in 2070 as a self-sufficient and sustainable community, living in harmony with the changed environment, actively managing the impacts of climate change on their place in Western Australia.

I’m quite excited about the second workshop in two weeks time, when we’ll start work on the action plan. climate change adaptation is one of our climate change consulting services. Please contact us if you’d like help with your climate change strategy.

Tags: climate change adaptation, local government, mundaring

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 30th, 2010 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Adaptation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Comments are closed.