Buliding our community in advance

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Project background


Referring Murray River Council's (MRC) Adverse Event Plan (AEP) in 2020 via input from the local community including farm owners, local business owners, representatives from progress associations, crisis support and health services. Subsequently MRC has partnered with Western Murray Land Improvement Group (WMLIG) to deliver upon the purpose and vision of the AEP building on resilience principles that focus on building community capacity. 

​With a growing risk of climate related impacts, it is vital that our community is well prepared. This project will assist in planning for these risks and help increase our resilience.

The project will build a stronger community by increasing resilience to changing conditions and diversify the community by creating competitive and quality services, improve infrastructure, agriculture production and more employment opportunities, which will translate to greater economic return for our region. This will ultimately increase long-term community health outcomes and safety. 

  • WMLIG will deliver activities aligned to the strategy that: 
    Provides community with climate decision-making support tools for business planning purposes via information sessions 
  • Diversify the economy and capture value at home through improving collaboration and information sharing to encourage innovation. 
  • Provide information sharing to encourage innovative approaches to land management. 
  • Investigate and share information about novel approaches to building a self-reliant community. 
  • Partner with MRC to form and engage a skilled leadership team from the geographical footprint across MRC. The team will identify and respond to strategic priorities, track implementation of projects, identify emerging issues or amendments to the AEP. 

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Resilience principles


  • A community led recovery 
  • Plan in the good times to be prepared for the bad times 
  • Continuous learning and improvement 

​Strategies include

  • Build resilience with adaptive methods 
  • Diversify the economy and capture value at home 
  • Build the capacity of the community 
  • Provide clear, timely and accurate communication


Project deliverables


Recent Projects

October 8, 2026
 On the 24th of October 2020, Western Murray Land Improvement Group along with Barham Landcare, held a fun and interactive workshop involving local Primary School children at Federation Reserve in Barham NSW. Two primary school classes from Barham Public School attended the workshop that saw Kindergarten on their very first out of school excursion. They were buddied up with Grade 3/4 and accompanied by 6 teachers and assistants from the school- making the total number of attendees 47. The workshop was facilitated by Barham Landcare volunteer and group treasurer Christine Dartnell and Local Landcare Coordinator (hosted by WMLIG) Stacey Waylen.
October 8, 2026
A summary of the day.
By Donna Marateo • October 8, 2026
A summary of the day.
October 8, 2026
On the 31st of January 2020, over 120 local farmers and agricultural experts attended a Feedlot Information Day held in Wakool. The crowd was a diverse geographical mix, with attendees from Lalbert, Piangil, Moulamein, Barham, Deniliquin and Wakool. As following with the 'young farmer' focus of the event, the majority (42%) of attendees were under 35, while 28% were 35-45 and 37% were 45+. The day began with a workshop at the Wakool Club focused on livestock feedlot considerations. Presenter Geoff Duddy from Sheep Solutions discussed the pro's and con's of feedlotting versus containment feeding, the cost of feed and comparison of different systems. He emphasized the importance of feeding sheep protein to build muscle, wool and encourage growth. The group finished off with an understanding of how feedlots interacted with the whole farm system. Following this presentation, district vet Linda Searle (Murray Local Land Services), educated attendees on the range of livestock diseases or health complications associated with feedlot production systems.
October 2, 2026
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October 2, 2026
World Wetlands Day 2023
October 2, 2026
​Blackwater events cause mass fish deaths across the Murray-Darling Basin
By John Reynold Tubay • September 29, 2026
In March 2020, we organised and coordinated a tour for local producers of the Griffith, Whitton and Coleambally areas, in the north-western region of the Riverina region of New South Wales. ​ Whilst it was a challenge in COVID-regulation times, our organisers, Stacey and Amy, did a great job in selecting a line-up of some of the most impressive and inspiring businesses that have successfully innovated existing product or created new products utilising spare capacity. ​ Many of the businesses that the group visited looked at value-adding options, supply chain innovation, collaboration and diversification opportunities.
By John Reynold Tubay • September 29, 2026
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