Resilience and disaster recovery

Disaster recovery plan

Support any community and the places they love to recover from disaster and build resilience. The Recovery Rangers program uses Conservation Volunteers Australia’s proven systems for rapid deployment of tailored restoration plans in any state.

Experienced and highly credentialed in community engagement, CVA is the safe pair of hands governments can trust in the wake of an emergency.

The seven-point Recovery Rangers process creates a robust response to any natural disaster:

1. Community-driven needs assessment informs the recovery plan
2. Fully-managed work crews repair environmental and nature tourism assets
3. The capacity of local community groups is enhanced with resources and training
4. Community leaders are mentored
5. Well-established WHS and HR systems protect local volunteers
6. Virtual volunteering allows people across Australia and around the world to mobilise and support with online citizen science
7. Full reporting to government and other funders

Case study: Recovery Rangers at Somerset

Hit by bushfires that were followed by floods, Somerset Regional Council west of Brisbane drew on Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements jointly funded by the Commonwealth and Queensland Governments to restore habitats and support the community.

After consulting with the Somerset community, CVA’s Recovery Rangers program responded:

• providing full-time employment for 26 job seekers
• planting 8,515 trees across 10 sites
• clearing 700,000 square metres of weeds and removing tonnes of debris
• supporting Landcare and local community groups to run three large community events
• upskilling on-ground volunteers with expert citizen science coaching to assess the health of their environment
• mobilising hundreds of virtual volunteers to assess more than 10,000 remote camera images.

But the star of the Somerset program turned out to be a sick koala named Maverick, who became emblematic of Somerset’s remarkable recovery and the community’s growing resilience.

Struck with chlamidya and struggling through bushland choked with weeds, volunteer citizen scientists could see Maverick was in trouble and arranged a rescue. While he was being nursed back to health by the RSPCA, the Recovery Rangers swung into action.

A whole of community effort supported by Conservation Volunteers Australia professionals swung behind Maverick. Lantana and cats claw creeper were removed by the tonne and thousands of trees planted in their place to create a new environment where koalas could thrive.

Maverick explores newly-opened territory

Two months later, he was back. Citizen scientists from across the country checked more than 10,000 remote camera images cataloguing Maverick’s movement and found him in parts of the bush that had been impossible to reach before the weeds were cleared.

Maverick’s story is the perfect example of best-practice disaster recovery: communities and the environment around them healing together supported by environmental engagement experts, Conservation Volunteers Australia.