Nigel Bell, led off and remindied us that the world we now live in has changed. The weather is hotter, we have less available water, oil will run out and energy costs will rise dramatically. He also reminded us that as we look to rebuild Flowerdale we are rebuilding for a future which will be different from the past. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to rebuild Flowerdale in a sustainable way.
He then asked us to break into groups to discuss "What do we want Flowerdale to be in 2020?" The groups went into passionate discussion for the next half hour and some of the key points that came out were:
Water is and will increasingly be a major issue, we need to think about how we can be smarter in how we use, treat and recycle water and look at collective solutions
The spirit that Flowerdale has and which has grown since Black Saturday is special and we want to ensure that those that lived here before the fires can rebuild. We also need to provide facilities for kids, the elderly and everyone else in between to make sure Flowerdale can stick together
We need modern communications, today we have poor internet access, weak mobile coverage and cannot even get Free to Air from Melbourne in some parts. We need to fix this with a view to the future
The community wants to pursue a sustainable agenda but it needs to be affordable and accessible for our current community members
Those whose houses survived or were partially damaged want to be able to participate in a sustainable model
The CSIRO team led by Matthew Inman covered off the key issues of integrated planning, bushfire safety, water and energy efficiency.
There is plenty more to cover, but in short it was successful and the community wants to keep moving forward.
That's a huge opportunity! I look forward to hearing more about how it goes Pete.
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