Connecting Communities

Contents

• Theme: Connecting communities - learning from Canadian approaches
• Checking the story - oral history of the Brunswick River, NSW
• Building capacity for environmental sustainability through the arts
• Sharing a vision for landscape design
• Rivers as inspiration
• River management - bridges we need to cross together
• Connecting communities with the future
• What is the future for the Goulburn-Broken catchment
• Rapt in rivers
• It's a Wrap: News from around Australia's States and Territories

Connecting Communities

Improving river and riparian management is all about working with people, and yet in the natural resources management industry we don't tend to spend a lot of time on this topic. Social aspects of river management are talked about as important, but often end up as an 'add on' to a project, or funded separately. If we are to connect with the communities around Australia that are being asked to take on responsibility for natural resources management, we need to rethink this approach and merge the social and biophysical so that integrated solutions to the issues we are facing can be developed. Just as we have developed many different biophysical techniques to understand our environment, we need to use a range of different approaches to connect with communities.

From the Editor

Welcome to a bumper Christmas edition of RipRap that is designed to give you inspiration for 2005 by reading about the range of ways that different groups in Australia and overseas are 'Connecting Communities'. Whether it be through art, drama, song, thinking about the future, or just having a good time, we all need to celebrate and enjoy the work we do. It is easy to get bogged down, particularly when the scale of some of the problems our rivers are experiencing is so large. However, we need to remember that people are part of the solution rather than always being the problem. As such, we need to connect with the communities we work within so that we can understand how best to jointly develop solutions to the issues we face. We also need to remember how to have a good time (!) and to value the role we play in improving river management. Celebrate your successes, celebrate your involvement and celebrate the end of another year working towards improved river and riparian areas across Australia. I look forward to working with you in 2005!

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