Building resilience to natural, climate and anthropocentric change in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges region: a natural resources management board perspective

Abstract

The Adelaide and Mt Lofty Ranges region is one of the areas of Australia most at risk from, natural, climate or human-induced environmental change. This region is effectively a green island surrounded by ocean and arid zones. Whilst this region is home for 1.3 million people it is also a biodiversity hot spot (one of 15 in Australia) and provides 17% of the agricultural production of the State. The region is at risk because significant parts of the flood plain are barely above sea level, it is heavily reliant on River Murray water, and is highly susceptible to severe natural events including drought, flood, fire and earthquake. This paper will examine how the Natural Resource Management approach to managing the regional environment is aimed to increase resilience of the ecosystems and communities of this area. The regional Natural Resources Management (NRM) Board was created under the Natural Resources Management Act 2004 (NRM Act), and raises a levy to spend on environmental improvement activities in the region. These activities are articulated in the NRM Plan for the region and are designed to achieve an improvement in the condition of our natural resources quantified by 13 targets 20-year regional targets. The NRM planning approach adopted by the Board involves understanding and applying the concepts of resilience and systems thinking and understanding and interpreting transition states. We will illustrate the resilience approach by describing the Adelaide and Mt Lofty NRM planning methodology and provide examples of the Board’s on ground activities.