Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

181 on ecosystem service provision under natural resource function. Activity ranges across a generic scale from low to high for social actors and from impaired to repaired for NR function. For emergency service actors, activity increases throughout Prepare, plateaus at a high level during Response and remains high through the “make-safe” period early in Recover. Activity then declines through the remainder of Recover to stabilise at a lower level throughout Prevent. For social assistance actors, activity increases rapidly during early Respond stimulated by the availability of government disaster funding to provide emergency food, clothing and shelter for evacuees. This type of social assistance remains high throughout Respond and declines during Recover as people are able to return to their homes after the “make-safe” period. A second type of social assistance that provides financial and psychological counselling for disaster victims (and emergency service volunteers) increases during Respond and peaks during Recover. These services decline sharply as government funding is withdrawn at the end of Recover. For the community, activity rises sharply in response to imminent danger and marks the change from Prepare to Respond. It then remains relatively high except for a hiatus in activity at the change from Respond to Recover as evacuees are unable to begin clean-up activities while emergency service personnel operate in the “make-safe” period. Community activity then declines through Recover as “normal” life is resumed and stays at a relatively low level during Prevent. Natural resource function declines sharply with the onset of the extreme event, remains impaired during Respond and may rise with the re-establishment of ecosystem services during Recover. The severity of the event determines the depth and duration of impairment. Ideally the level of emergency management and community activities in Prevent and Prepare would be sufficient to ensure protection of the natural resource base during the event and complete repair of natural resource function during Recover. It should be noted that none of the event types examined in workshops conforms perfectly to the theoretical timeline. 2.3. Activity in the Extreme Event Management Cycle 2.3.1. Prepare Bushfire The threat of bushfire is seasonal and there is a well-organised bushfire awareness-raising program delivered by emergency services that targets the community—especially in the lead up to the bushfire season. Despite this program, most of the community rarely focuses on bushfire until late in the preparation phase when fire risk is already “Extreme”. Action in this phase by rural landholders was likely to be anticipatory and driven by local knowledge of the significance of weather patterns—prolonged hot, dry and windy conditions coupled with official weather forecasts, particularly of lightning strikes, and public hazard signs. Participants reported looking for signs in the landscape, such as bushland that is low in moisture, or the build-up of fuel in natural areas. NRM action reported to take place in preparation and prevention phases is similar and is largely centered on removing native vegetation such as Eucalyptus from around dwellings, or replacing native trees with non-natives such as deciduous trees. Where possible, rural landholders reported attempting to mitigate risk by: incorporating fire and wind breaks into native plantings, using grazing management or slashing (contentious due to the risk of sparks) to reduce the threat of grass fires; and, clearing understory vegetation to reduce fuel loads in selected areas. In the Prepare and Prevent phases emergency management agencies and Local Councils engage in fuel reduction activities such as prescribed burning, mechanical clearing/slashing, trimming trees, maintaining fire trails and Asset Protection Zones (APZ’s). However, these activities can have negative consequences for NRM and are reportedly increasingly contentious among communities. Some coastal residents felt that “hazard burning, reducing canopy cover and loss of moisture increases vulnerability”. 2.3.2. Response The transition from the Prepare phase into the Respond phase occurs when a warning is communicated via the local radio, television or through RFS website or text messaging. In this phase people will smell and/or see smoke or may be subject to ember attack on their properties. However there is often confusion over the exact location of a fire and its direction of movement. The primary focus in the Respond phase is protecting lives and property, yet this often comes at the expense of natural resources. Landholders open gates and cut fences to allow livestock to roam free, and firebreaks and fire trails are created with bulldozers—which can inadvertently damage sensitive ecological communities (EECs or riparian zones) and may require extensive rehabilitation once the fire has passed. Phosphate-based chemical suppressants may be used to fight fires in remote areas, in spite of the fact that native vegetation is known to be sensitive to phosphate levels and the impact of fire suppressants is largely unknown. One RFS volunteer explained that the local RFS “try to protect trees with hollows for nesting sites by wetting them down”. The use of Remote Area Fire Teams (RAFT) to quickly extinguish fires in inaccessible areas as a result of lightning strikes drew some criticism because it was seen as interrupting the natural hazard reduction processes that occur through regular burning and increased the likelihood of future catastrophic fires. The key combat agency in managing bushfire response generally views protection of natural assets as a low priority. In a field operation, decision-making is necessarily rapid, and reactive to local conditions. Allocation of resources is prioritized for the protection of life and property (often the lives of the fire crews themselves are in serious jeopardy). Under such circumstances, particularly in intense, large-