Tarnagulla Community Resilience Action Plan

Aim: For the Tarnagulla community to develop their own Resilience Action Plan.

Outcome: By establishing the Tarnagulla Alternative Energy Group (TAEG) in 2017, and using a grant from the Victorian Department of Environment Land Water and Planning (DELWP), this local group engaged RMIT researcher, Dr Mittul Vahanvati, to collaborate with TAEG members and the community to co-produce the Tarnagulla Community Resilience Plan (TCRP).

With a population of 133 people, Tarnagulla is on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in Central Victoria’s Golden Triangle, surrounded by Box Ironbark forests. Tarnagulla developed their plan through three main phases of work:

1. Increasing awareness, trust and participation.
2. Community identification of strengths, challenges, vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities.
3. Development of a resilience action plan.

This was done through a series of eight workshops, involving an average of 17 attendees per workshop, totalling 230 participants. Actions proposed by the community were prioritised through a citizen jury, and later tested during a stakeholder workshop. EMV and other public policy representatives including SES, CFA, Loddon Shire Councillors, local Victorian police, and health sector members, contributed to testing of actions against a climate scenario.

Tarnagulla officially launched their Resilience Action Plan on September 10th, 2020.