1. Institutionalising wildfire planning in New Zealand: Lessons learnt from the 2009 Victoria bushfire experience.
- Author
-
Kornakova, M.
- Subjects
EMERGENCY management ,HEALTH planning ,WILDFIRES - Abstract
The Port Hills wildfire experience demonstrates the severity of wildfire risk on the periphery of urban areas in some parts of New Zealand, and highlights the need to build resilience to this peril. The current paper focuses on the role of land-use planning in reducing wildfire risk and building resilience at the wildland-urban interface -- hereafter termed wildfire planning. It identifies and recommends strategies for institutionalising wildfire planning in New Zealand. Very little scholarly attention has been focused on this topic to date and little effort has been made to institutionalise wildfire planning in New Zealand. Extensive experience in wildfire planning in Australia, called bushfire planning, can inform future wildfire planning efforts in New Zealand, given local natural hazards planning provisions and experience. We reviewed publications, plans and policy provisions related to the post-2009 Black Saturday Victorian bushfire experience, alongside insights drawn from key informant interviews. Based on these insights, we have identified barriers and enablers for institutionalising bushfire planning and distilled particular lessons. The current article follows these findings with key topics for building a wildfire planning research and practice agenda in New Zealand, concerning measures to: (1) reduce wildfire risk; (2) mobilise and integrate domains of professional practice relevant to wildfire planning; (3) develop community-based wildfire planning capability; and (4) meet the needs of current and future generations by institutionalising wildfire resilient development pathways at New Zealand's wildland-urban interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2018