Taking a fresh approach to bushfire preparedness, globally recognised ecological designer and permaculture pioneer David Holmgren is bringing together fire survivors, experts and community members for a two-day forum in Campbells Creek this weekend.
The event aims to move beyond fear-based bushfire messaging and give households practical knowledge and confidence to prepare their properties, protect their communities and build resilience.
The two-day program, on November 7 and 8, includes a full-day tour of local properties showcasing fire-resilient homes, followed by a forum featuring a diverse lineup of expert guest speakers.
Topics will range from understanding how houses burn and designing bushfire-resilient landscapes to household and community response planning, post-disaster recovery and reintegration.
David said natural disasters had been an important consideration since he began his permaculture work in the 1970s.
“The message we have been giving for many, many decades is around that term ‘stay and defend or leave early’,” he said.
“Basically, that was thrown away, and all the policies to support that and community fireguards were sort of abandoned after 2009. The new messaging was ‘leave and live’.
“We want to start from the bottom up, with lived experience of both professionals and ordinary people, and empower householders around the fact that the presence of one able-bodied person is around three to six times more significant in determining whether a house burns down or not.”
David said the forum would bring together local voices to explore how individuals, households and communities could take a more active role in managing bushfire risk.
“We want to empower people to do something with fire, rather than just the fear message,” he said.
“Fear is a motivator, but it can be really counterproductive and lead to poor decisions.”
Saturday’s pre-forum tour will visit Fryers Forest Eco Village, Harcourt Farming Co-operative with Katie and Hugh Finlay, and a private Harcourt property owned by Stevie Barrett, who stayed and defended his home during the January fires.
David said the event would also highlight positive stories of people who had successfully defended their properties.
“One of the things we’ve discovered is that when people have a positive experience defending their homes, they won’t speak about it afterwards, because it feels like gloating and they suffer survivor’s guilt, and these positive stories don’t get told,” he said.
Sunday’s full-day forum will feature speakers from a range of backgrounds and experiences.
Pete McCurly will discuss Indigenous fire management, while Darryl Taylor, a Kinglake fire survivor and prominent community recovery advocate, will share his experience.
Professional horticulturists Rob Pelletier and Kate Blood will discuss property design and their experiences defending their homes.
Patrick Jones will explore the use of goats to manage vegetation and shrub fuels, including gorse and blackberry, on common land – an approach he and others have been using in Daylesford for decades.
David said communities could take greater responsibility for managing nearby public land, rather than relying solely on government agencies.
“We’re trying to empower people to take sensible responsibility for common land. The government doesn’t have the money or the resources to manage all the common land,” he said.
“There are lots of ways we can do that, especially when we have the social licence from neighbours. We don’t often need to even formalise that.
“We call it enlightened self-interest. It’s good for you. It’s good for the neighbours, and it’s good for the environment.”
He said small, locally driven initiatives could make a significant difference, encouraging people to take responsibility for the landscape beyond their own properties.
“In permaculture, we start at the back doorstep and go towards the back paddock and over the fence into the neighbouring public land and, by small steps, we get back towards doing what Indigenous people used to do in this Country without technology.”
Each speaker will deliver a 20-minute presentation, followed by an afternoon panel discussion tackling some of the more complex and challenging issues surrounding bushfire preparedness and recovery.
Tickets are $30/$20 for both days, with individual day tickets also available.
For more information or to book, visit holmgren.com.au/lp/community-bushfire-forum-with-david-holmgren.