Planning evacuations with Indigenous communities

This presentation will introduce the 'Companion Guide – Planning Evacuation with Indigenous Communities’. This Guide has been developed in response to increased major disasters impacting Indigenous communities.
Research has shown that Indigenous communities across Australia have been disproportionately impacted by recent disasters. The 2019-20 bushfires throughout Eastern Australia, the 2022 Northern Rivers floods in NSW, floods along the Murray River and its tributaries in Victoria and South Australia, flooding in the Kimberly, and throughout parts of the Northern Territory, have all resulted in evacuations. These events saw the evacuation of discreet Aboriginal communities as well as towns with high Indigenous populations. Despite the disproportionate impact these disasters have had on Indigenous communities, there are few resources to guide the evacuation of Indigenous communities.
This Companion Guide has been developed by the National Indigenous Disaster Resilience program, and as part of the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience’s Australian Disaster Resilience Handbook Collection. The purpose of the Companion Guide is to support those engaged in evacuation to work effectively with Indigenous residents to ensure that evacuations occur quickly and in culturally safe ways, as well as to provide guidance to Indigenous agencies on engaging with the emergency management processes.