This RCS recognises the strong connection between the health of the catchment and the wellbeing of the community. It encourages greater participation and investment in the protection, enhancement and restoration of land, water and biodiversity resources in the Corangamite region. ‘Community’ refers to all those with an interest or potential interest in the environment who live or work in, or visit, the Corangamite region. Community includes individual landowners, community members and groups, government agencies, industry bodies, authorities and investors.
Under the Communities Theme in the Corangamite Regional Catchment Strategy are two Sub-themes:
Integrated catchment management (ICM) adopts a whole‐of‐system approach to land, water and biodiversity planning and delivery for multiple outcomes within and across natural ecosystems. It captures the values and priorities of regional communities and brings together partners from across the catchment region to identify and respond to challenges that cannot be solved by one organisation or stakeholder alone.
Aboriginal peoples have lived in the area now known as the Corangamite region for thousands of generations. The natural environment of the region is in reality a cultural landscape. that has been lived in, used, managed and ultimately shaped by Aboriginal peoples over tens of thousands of years. Today’s landscape has been heavily shaped by the actions of those who have lived here.
The Corangamite Catchment Management Authority acknowledges and respects Traditional Owners and Aboriginal communities and organisations, especially the Wadawurrung and Eastern Maar Traditional Owners. The diversity of their cultures and the deep connections they have with Corangamite’s lands and waters are acknowledged. Partnerships with them for the health of people and country are also valued. Respect to their Elders past and present are acknowledged and the primacy of Traditional Owners’ obligations, rights and responsibilities to use and care for their traditional lands and waters are recognised.
This will be achieved by:
- aligning and including the outcomes of Traditional Owner Healthy Country Plans to the delivery of the Regional Catchment Strategy
- integrating Aboriginal engagement and participation in the planning, governance, implementation and review of programs and projects
- actively engaging Aboriginal communities and building partnerships
- ensuring engagement and participation approaches are well planned, tailored, targeted and evaluated
- providing meaningful opportunities for Aboriginal people to contribute to strategies and initiatives
- establishing clear roles and expectations.
The commitment to recognising Traditional Owners is also represented by the inclusion in this Regional Catchment Strategy of individual pages dedicated to the Eastern Maar and Wadawurrung Traditional Owners as the two Registered Aboriginal Parties for the Corangamite region.
Regional Outcomes
20 Year Outcome
By 2042, communities are empowered to collaborate, connect and protect the region’s natural assets.
6 Year Outcomes
By 2027, communities have the knowledge, skills and capacity to actively participate in and contribute to management of the region in a range of ways. CO1
By 2027, communities (local, new and visitor) are encouraged, educated and enabled to further connect with and responsibly care for the natural environment. CO2
By 2027, communities (local, new and visitor) have an increased awareness and understanding of the connection between human activities and impacts on the environment. CO3
By 2027, the increased capacity of Traditional Owner Groups enables their increased involvement in decision making that affects their Country. CO4
Regional Priority Directions
The following priority directions have been developed to deliver the 6 year outcomes identified for the Regional Communities sub-theme. They were developed through community consultation across the the nine Landscape Systems and will provide the basis for localised action. Priorities for Traditional Owners have been developed in conjunction with, and parallel to, this to enable the Wadawurrung and Eastern Maar to specifically identify their aspirations on their own dedicated pages. Landscape specific priority directions can be found here.
| Code | Priority Direction | Lead | Collaborators |
| C1 | Develop and implement a monitoring and evaluation framework that enables timely adaptive management and decision making. The framework will allow for: 1) accessible monitoring frameworks and repository of the region’s NRM resource data 2) develop measures and assessments to determine the community’s awareness of the natural values, their connection to these and their willingness to protect, enhance, and restore these 3) reporting to the community on implementation progress. | CCMA | CPA Partners, Landcare |
| C2 | Ensure community education and engagement activities are grounded in the most recent and relevant social research available, and targeted to the specific local geographic area. | CCMA | Landcare |
| C3 | Promote a culture of exchange that enables the sharing of resources, experiences and knowledge. | Landcare | CCMA, AgVic, SFS, WVD, Local Govt, EMAC, WTOAC |
| C4 | Design and deliver a comprehensive education program to connect communities (local, new and visitor) to their local landscape and the enviromental services it provides and empower them to take action. | CCMA | Landcare |
| C5 | Encourage and enable community participation (volunteering) in on-ground environmental works to restore and protect environmental assets. | Landcare | Local Govt, CCMA |
| C6 | Actively celebrate and share the stories of success and impact of communities improving their local environment. | Landcare | CCMA |
| C7 | Catchment partners work together to deliver a coordinated approach to supporting communities to participate in environmental programs. | CCMA | Landcare |
| C8 | Support Traditional Owner groups so that we can maintain enduring and genuine partnerships. | CCMA | EMAC, WTOAC |
| C9 | Engage with the community on the need to mitigate and adapt to climate change and its impacts. | CCMA | Landcare, DELWP, AgVic |
| C10 | Promote and actively encourage the use of citizen science information by agencies, researchers and other members of the community. | CCMA | DELWP |
| C11 | Encourage and support citizen scientists to continue to regularly monitor the quality of natural environments to provide long-term data sets and actively manage issues as they arise. | CCMA | Local Govt, Landcare |
Relevant Community Information Sources
The following documents have been referred to in developing the Community theme:
Eastern Maar Country Plan (Meerreengeeye ngakeepoorryeeyt)
Social Benchmarking for Natural Resource Management: 2019 Corangamite Region
Wadawurrung Healthy Country Plan (Paleert Tjaara Dja)
