Training:  How do we build north Australian community capacity to manage fires and other natural hazards at a landscape scale? — ASN Events
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Training:  How do we build north Australian community capacity to manage fires and other natural hazards at a landscape scale? (#87)

Stephen A Sutton 1
  1. Charles Darwin University, NT, Australia

The capacity of communities to prepare, respond to and recover from disasters stems from a matrix of factors, but training and the development of skills and knowledge is critical.  This paper will look at training needs for northern Australia, taking into account the demography and geography that collude to maintain widely dispersed, remote and isolated populations, with poor infrastructure who are faced with a regular suite of natural disasters that impact at a landscape scale.

The management of fire in northern Australia in particular requires integrated strategic to operational programs working at a landscape scale, with 340,000 km2 burnt on average each year.  In addition to responding to unacceptable fire scales, there is an increasing need to capitalise on economic opportunities arising from the abatement of greenhouse gases from fires in the savannas, support the safety of the communities, maintain regional biodiversity, enhance agriculture and pastoralism specifically, as well as maintain cultural traditions.  And this work has started.  Over the last 15 years management programs have emerged (in Cape York, Arnhem Land and the Kimberley ) that have taken on this challenge and communities are now implementing the fire regimes they want.  But these programs rely on the wisdom and skills of veteran fire and land managers .  The current training regime, derived from the southern Australian context (and correctly focussed on safety of personnel) needs to be adapted to encompass these wider aspirations.  It not clear that veteran fire managers can train and mentor the hundreds or thousands of fire and  natural disaster managers that will be required in the future.

An analysis of training needs for northern Australian landscape fire management has been undertaken, relying on the input of the people currently doing the work.  The findings indicate that a much greater emphasis needs to be placed on the management of fire in an ecological context at a landscape scale, taking into account the extant knowledge of Aboriginal Traditional Owners.  There is also a need to take time to mentor trainees to provide them with the skills and knowledge to manage fires at a landscape scale.