Resilience in the Regen Region by Tim Scott
Resilience- Noun: “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness”. (Thank you Dr. Google)
Dr. Ginsburg (close friend of Dr. Google) suggests there are 7 components that make up resilience being; Competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping and control. (2013)
This is the second time this year the term “Resilience” has come into focus. It’s a re-occurring theme; but what better time than after a natural disaster to take a minute to assess our own resilience especially considering January’s meat shortages in supermarkets? In our family, our work or business and in our community; how do we rate in each of the 7 C’s?
Moving to the Mary Valley after growing up in Southwest Qld (as a young child) I don’t recall daily or even weekly trips to the shops. About every fortnight was enough. Friends in more isolated areas were travelling to “town” monthly and in the wet season maybe every few months. We put containers out to collect rainwater in the wet, had tanks and a freezer that was always well stocked and if the power went out, we used to have a bucket shower and get told continually to “keep the fridge shut”. The phone was always out so until UHF’s became common place, connection with others was not even a consideration. We had a few killers in the front paddock, a milking goat and some veges in the garden – if things really went pear shaped.
Of course, looking objectively at resilience in the face of adversity is difficult as in any isolating event there are a range impacts, from very severe (loss of life) to “No Netflix for a week”. I will state the obvious though, at a basic survival level, I believe it’s unacceptable to have a food system where milk is being dumped by dairies just a few kilometers from where shops have run out. It’s unacceptable to have empty shelves in supermarkets when farms have produce spoil because it can’t make it to centralised distribution hubs in a flooded suburb of Brisbane; and it’s unacceptable to have to helicopter drinking water into small communities when they’ve had close to a meter of rainfall in previous days (bottled water companies don’t make water, they make bottles).
I’m not sure if “Resilient” and “Self-Sufficient” are necessarily the same thing but they must be related except for Dr. Ginsburg’s “Connection” – possibly the most important of the 7 C’s. There are people in the community that we need to connect with to help in times of adversity, but they can only be helped if the ones that are able, competent and confident make the changes NOW to build resilience in our systems for next time. They must also be willing.
Starting young, the Kandanga Swimming Club kids managed to door-knock much of the town delivering water to those in need in the March flood. Perhaps it’s them that need to be asked what has to happen in the next disaster- because it will be them who will most likely be leading the recovery effort.
Looking at the big picture and seeing what’s wrong is the challenge. Making changes away from the centralised, corporatised and homoginised survival system we have bought into isn’t easy. Voting with your dollar for a system that doesn’t collapse with every climate emergency is the only solution as there’s every chance these “unprecedented events” will become more prevalent, not less, in the future.
