We are thrilled to be able to wrap up the People Led Prevention Project that was delivered across the Central West Region this year.

Through this project, four of our Central West Region Landcare groups have delivered seven workshops and learning opportunities….and we threw in a bonus through Homegrown Parkes.

The regional groups have worked with emergency services to deliver these events that have had a focus on disaster preparedness in many forms.

Three workshops were held with Graham Ross AM in Dunedoo, Grenfell and Forbes. Graham certainly was a crowd puller. It was wonderful to hear about his passion for horticulture and gardening and about the work that he has done to ensure that the industry progresses in a positive way so that we are bringing through young people into the horticultural industry.

We were also fortunate to have several other amazing presenters including ecologist Alison Elvin speaking on resilient landscape development in Condobolin and Parkes, landscape designer Sally Bourne who spoke about creating gardens that are considerate of a natural environmental balance at Homegrown Parkes and self-supporting, agricultural business consultant Dr David Brown spoke at Grenfell on risk management and planning, architect and interior designer Sally Sutherland spoke on building and landscape design to combat the extremes of heat, cold, fire and flood, in addition to the amazing volunteers from RFS and SES who brought a focus to disaster preparation and management.

These workshops were all provided for free, engaged nearly 300 people and increased awareness of the options for preparing properties, people and animals for natural disasters.

Given the changes in climatic conditions that we are currently facing, having options for preparedness is just smart.

Landcare NSW’s People Led Prevention project empowers communities across regional NSW in developing disaster resilience and preparedness skills. The Disaster Risk Reduction Fund is jointly funded by the Australian and NSW Governments.

The People Led Prevention project focused on behaviour change for natural hazard risk reduction.

It was wonderful to see our emergency service providers come together into one space to provide information to the community, planning options and increase disaster resilience and community connectivity.

We hope to be able to deliver more funding opportunities to be delivered across the region. Working together provides increased options for delivery and also brings maximum benefit to our regional communities. Thank you to everyone who has been part of this program.

For further information on this article, please go to www.centralwestlachlanlandcare.org, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @cwllandcare