The Northern Hub is one of the eight Drought Resilience and Innovation Hubs across Australia that aim to enhance drought resilience and preparedness for farmers and rural communities. The Northern Hub covers the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia, and works with a range of stakeholders, including First Nations, researchers, industry service providers, and producers.
The Northern Hub is currently planning its activities for the next four years (2024-2028) and is seeking input from its stakeholders to inform its priorities and projects. The Northern Hub has proposed five pillars of action for drought resilience, which are:
- First Nations: Understanding and addressing climate risks to the value obtained from indigenous managed landscape (e.g., wild food availability and management implications)
- Human capacity: Facilitating collaboration, knowledge sharing, and professional development (e.g., regional meetings, scholarships, community liaison and node staff)
- Resilient landscapes: Improving capacity to manage grazing (e.g., feed base monitoring, grazing systems) and horticultural landscapes (e.g.; water, soils)
- Natural capital: Improving capacity to manage carbon and biodiversity, and negotiating opportunities for monetisation
- Preparation & planning: Extending the uptake of resilience planning, for sustainable farm/station businesses through climate extremes and supply chain shocks.
The Northern Hub is inviting its stakeholders to participate in an online workshop to review these pillars, discuss suitable projects within each pillar, and identify potential partners and contributions. The online workshops will be held on different dates and times to suit different audiences and time zones. The workshops are open to anyone who is involved or interested in drought resilience in the Northern Hub region, and there will be a separate consultation process for First Nations stakeholders.
To register for an online workshop, please click here Northern Hub Consultation Workshops (office.com) and fill out a short form. You will receive a calendar invite with the details of the workshop. You can also upload a submission or provide feedback via a survey on the same link. Discussion questions are provided in the draft Investment Strategy to help facilitate stakeholder feedback.
The deadline for submissions and feedback is AEDT 5pm, 6 December 2023. Your input will help shape the future of drought resilience in the Northern Hub and inform the Government’s response to the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry Report on the Future Drought Fund.
We look forward to hearing from you and working together to build a more resilient Northern Hub!
