CORANGAMITE CMA INVITES FEEDBACK ON DRAFT EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS & RESPONSE PLAN

The Corangamite Catchment Management Authority (CCMA) is inviting stakeholders and community members to provide feedback on its draft Biodiversity and Agricultural Natural Capital Emergency Preparedness & Response Plan.

Feedback can be provided via a quick 5 minute survey (link below) which will be open for comment until 5pm Friday May 10, 2024.

There is a growing need to enhance preparedness for natural disasters and their impact on biodiversity and agricultural natural capital assets within the Corangamite region. Ensuring the survival of species and places helps to preserve key ecosystems services such as clean air, water, and climate regulation, all of which profoundly affect human well-being. Disaster preparedness bolsters the resilience of ecosystems, enabling them to recover and flourish following catastrophic events. 

The Australian Government invited the CCMA to develop a plan that considers the most likely natural disaster scenarios for the Corangamite Management Unit and the potential impacts on nationally threatened species, ecological communities and agricultural assets. The plan is built on lessons learnt during recent environmental disasters and on CCMA regional planning documents. It identifies and maps nationally significant biodiversity and agricultural natural capital assets (drawing on existing information holdings at Commonwealth, State or regional level investigation) at an appropriate scale for emergency response, overlays this with extreme weather events and natural disaster susceptibility data such as bushfire, drought, erosion and flood risk. The plan outlines preparedness, response and recovery actions for each biodiversity and agricultural asset with the aim of reducing the impact of catastrophic events. We are undertaking community/stakeholder engagement including information sharing with the community, landholders, First Nations people, emergency services, and governments, to share and integrate the information generated to enable consistency within the Corangamite management unit.

This project contributes to actions under the 2022-2032 Threatened Species Action Plan, Environmental Outcomes of the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT), and Outcomes of the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program.

VIEW THE DRAFT PLAN HERE.

COMPLETE THE SURVEY HERE and provide your feedback by 5pm Friday May 10, 2024.

If you have any questions about the plan or survey, please contact Rachael Beecham at: rachael.beecham@ccma.vic.gov.au

This project is funded by the Australian Government Natural Heritage Trust and delivered by Corangamite CMA, a member of the Commonwealth Regional Delivery Partners panel.