Central Victorian Biolinks held a Alliance meeting in Bendigo on August 27 2013. Members got together to exchange updates on key achievements and challenges over the past year and listen to a talk by Paul Ryan, a leading NRM planning thinker and consultant, on  Building resilient communities and landscapes; challenges and approaches for planning in uncertain times. To realise the outcomes we have come together to achieve, planning of different sorts, at multiple scales is going to be essential.  Of course it is already being done in different ways for different ends by different bodies and groups across central Victoria.  One necessary role for CVB is to ensure that ecological processes that operate at scales greater than landcare networks, CMNs and CMAs plan at are also given attention.  This could be through simply providing information at the right points of existing planning processes – or it could be through helping develop community ecological planning processes that engender community ownership of biolinks from small to large scales.

Paul presented an excellent overview of Resilience thinking – which inherently considers the interconnectedness of social and environmental systems – and why it provides a good approach for developing sound priorities in systems that are complex and subject to many pressures and changes.

If you would like more information on Paul's presentation please contact Sophie at sophie@centralvicbiolinks.org.au