Nature-led community recovery

Disasters, such as bushfires, can cause significant harm to people’s relationship with the natural environment. In addition to the event itself, the loss of wildlife and familiar landscapes can be devastating for people. But nature does respond and recover, even though this may be slow and not complete.  It has been shown that connecting people with nature’s recovery can help trauma-affected communities heal.

Following the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires, ARI has partnered with Zoos Victoria to support nature’s role in helping people and communities recover. The collaborative program looks at social, economic and environmental recovery of fire-impacted communities, while assisting the recovery of the natural environment.

This program supports fire-impacted communities to learn about how nature is responding to the bushfires, and to lead projects that benefit local plants, wildlife and habitats. It provides communities with access to biologists and ecological experts for advice and guidance, support citizen science projects and create opportunities to share stories of human-nature recovery using various media (e.g. films, seminars, audio).