Regional Capacity

Developing Regional capacity and community involvement is vital to natural resource management on the South Coast and delivering NRM outcomes across a range of themes (Biodiversity, Land, Coastal and Marine and Cultural Heritage).

Consultation and active participation in planning and decision-making is necessary for the community to be involved in NRM.  This has been achieved through the decisions of the Reference Groups, NRM Committee and the South Coast NRM Board of Management to invest broadly throughout the Region. South Coast NRM coordinates steering groups to ensure project implementation that integrates current technical information and best practice. The Regional Landcare facilitators meet regularly with Chairs and Deputy Chairs of sub-regional groups as a mechanism to identify emerging issues and project needs.

Community involvement

South Coast NRM embarked on the review of Southern Prospects 2004-2009 involving community and key stakeholders including state Government agencies, Local Government, non-profit organisations and business. This extensive review provided the platform for the development of the revised Strategy, Southern Prospects 2011-16. The South Coast NRM staff, Reference Groups, NRM Committee and South Coast NRM Board of Management all played important roles in this process.

An increasing number of community sectors are becoming involved in South Coast NRM project activity. South Coast NRM directly supports a range of community groups through devolving the majority of the Caring for Our Country investment to community-based NRM groups and providing a devolved grant scheme for a range of on-ground activities (biodiversity, waterway protection, coastal, land initiatives and weed management). 

South Coast NRM’s Southern Fund involved new community groups by funding  projects including Recycle, Reuse, Reduce, Refuse, Reinvent Project, revegetation of sand dunes and foreshore of Cape Riche and Boat Harbour recreation areas, Fungimap VI Conference, Renewable Resources Field Day and three projects on Indigenous properties.

Maintaining and boosting communication networks are vital to information and knowledge exchange and to enable the community to participate in NRM.

Knowledge and skills

South Coast NRM has provided training, facilitation and leadership to the NRM community since the early days of SCRIPT. The training delivered has assisted in building capacity and skills needed to effectively deliver on Southern Prospects 2004-2009. The types of training delivered included increasing skills in governance, planning, cultural awareness, computer and data base skills and sustainable land practices.

This training has been delivered either directly through South Coast NRM or in partnership with delivery organisations or government departments. Feedback from the NRM community demonstrates there is strong demand for continued training to assist in the delivery of a range of NRM activities including control of weeds.

A Community Events Calendar was developed to become a hub for all NRM and environment related events, conferences, volunteer and training opportunities happening on the South Coast. The online calendar is hoped to be a single point of reference for the South Coast community and professionals to visit for an up to date events, training or lecture time tables. This became live on the South Coast NRM website in November 2010. Support for the calendar has been increasing.

Targeted training was delivered through a Pilot Training Project to assist with building capacity in NRM based groups and volunteers in the South Coast region.  This pilot project was well supported and delivered 7 targeted training events including Maximising Behaviour Change in NRM and community projects, National Weed Watcher Database Training, Weed ID and control for community, Weed ID and control for schools and Senior First Aid training. The newly developed online training calendar was successfully used to promote these training events and take registrations.