In March 2026, we presented preliminary findings from our Natural Hazards Research Australia-funded research on shared responsibility for bushfire risk management in a Natural Hazards Research Australia Knowledge Sharing Forum.
What followed was one of the most energising Q&A sessions we have been part of. In this article, we respond to key questions raised, and share some of the thinking that that conversation sparked for us.
The concept of shared responsibility sits at the heart of disaster risk management law and policy in Australia. The concept is articulated in the United Nations’ Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 as follows:
"While States have the overall responsibility for reducing disaster risk, it is a shared responsibility between governments and relevant stakeholders. In particular, non-State stakeholders play an important role as enablers in providing support to States, in accordance with national policies, laws and regulations, in the implementation of the present Framework at local, national, regional and global levels. Their commitment, goodwill, knowledge, experience and resources will be required ".
In Australia, the concept has been examined in numerous reports and inquiries, following catastrophic events such as Victoria’s Black Saturday (2009) and nationally, after Black Summer (2019–2020). Shared responsibility is also expressly included in many State and Territory policies and strategies.
In our Natural Hazards Research Australia-funded research project about shared responsibility, we wondered whether these governance instruments are translating into clear understanding and expectations about how, when and what responsibility is shared for bushfire risk management.
We also wondered about how (or whether) shared responsibility is implemented ‘on the ground’.
We surveyed 64 individuals, representing a range of top-down organisations (e.g. government agencies), bridging institutions (e.g. conservation and community organisations), and grassroots groups (e.g., informal, area-specific groups of community members) in Tasmania and Australia wide.
It starts with relationships
One of the first questions from the Knowledge Sharing Forum audience went straight to the heart of what we discovered in our research.
We were asked: Where do personal relationships sit in all this?
Our honest answer is: Everywhere.
Personal motivation, local knowledge, and the willingness of individuals to go that little bit further; what you might call the “local champion” effect.
These characteristics shape a great deal of how shared responsibility actually plays out on the ground. Some of our research participants described their personal relationships at work as the very thing that made shared responsibility feel like it was working within their operational structure.
Others talked about how relationships with people in other organisations facilitated meaningful collaborations, although people engaging in cross-organisation sharing also ran into hurdles.
We think this finding about the importance of relationships is actually one of the most important ones from our project.
Australian governments have worked hard to design and implement frameworks and governance structures that include responsibility sharing, but our research indicates that, for shared responsibility to work, we also need to actively create and sustain conditions in which relationships between individuals can thrive in the system.
The awareness–action gap (and why “indifference” is often misread)
Several questions during the Knowledge Sharing Forum touched on what we describe as an awareness–action gap: situations where individuals, organisations or authorities appear indifferent to bushfire risk, even when the evidence for action is clear.
One participant shared a personal example, in which a local council that had initially committed to a community-led fuel reduction project, later quietly placed it in “the too hard basket”.
Our research suggests that what looks like indifference from the outside is often something more structural on the inside.
For example, local councils may face genuine legal and policy constraints on what they’re actually permitted to do.
Siloed organisational structures, political sensitivities and competing practical priorities can limit participation as well. The risk, though, is that frustration in a relationship between individuals within and outside of government hardens into adversarial dynamics and that can shut down exactly the kind of collaboration we need.
One annotation made during the session captures this tension well: “No one wants to be the enemy of the public by doing the wrong thing”.
Systems often penalise failure and create perfect conditions for blame avoidance. What we mean is, it’s often easier and less risky to do nothing than to try to do something good but face the blame if it doesn’t work.
Some of our research participants hinted at an idea that is common in the adaptation literature: that we need systems that allow for (or even incentivise) trial and error. Flexible approaches that provide genuine room for learning would provide a really helpful foundation for more efficiently sharing responsibility for bushfire management.
In the Knowledge Sharing Forum, one person asked a related question about misinformation, observing that particularly loud voices can distort the message about what communities actually want.
This is a real phenomenon, and it connects to the same underlying issue: that decision-making processes that don’t create enough space for nuance may end up amplifying the most vocal, not the most representative.
Empowering communities: A mosaic of possibilities
A theme emerged across many of the questions in our Knowledge Sharing Forum Q&A, around what it actually means to empower community groups to take up responsibility and what gets in the way.
For example, a question from the ACT pointed to something that we’ve also seen in Tasmania: disagreements about ecological outcomes can present serious barriers to community groups trying to take on fuel reduction responsibilities. That is, different actors (governments, bridging institutions, grassroots groups) draw on different knowledge bases and can reach different conclusions about the best way forward.
This is genuinely difficult.
In a separate study, our research group found that political affiliation was a significant indicator for fuel reduction preferences in Tasmania.
We found that Greens Party voters tended to prioritise ecological values; Liberal Party supporters prioritised fuel reduction outcomes; while Labor Party supporters occupied a middle ground (you can read more about this research here).
We cannot satisfy everyone at the same time. But, what does seem promising, is that all of those groups were open to evidence-based management that works toward long-term wildfire mitigation and ecological values simultaneously.
What our research, and the Knowledge Sharing Forum Q&A, demonstrated is that shared responsibility shouldn’t mean a single uniform approach. It’s more like a mosaic – not just a landscape-level solution but an approach that is both adaptable and, critically, actually adapted to community interests and local contexts.
Short funding cycles and the attention-gap
A lot of current funding mechanisms are structurally unsustainable for the kind of long-term, community-embedded work that shared responsibility requires.
Participants in our study described their experience of community recovery work as a loop, or an ‘attention-gap’, where projects get funding for a short period after an event when attention on the incident is high. This might help to fund rebuilding infrastructure and develop capacity but then the mission is declared complete and the funding runs out. Next time, you start again.
This attention gap is especially acute in communities that are changing (e.g., in their demographics, urban density or transitions in local industries). Yet, some organisations manage to sustain a sense of purpose. Landcare groups were pointed out in our research as a good example. One group in particular has purchased the land that they care for, and fire management has been integrated into a broader ecological purpose that gives the group a reason to sustain their initiative beyond any single project or season.
One participant in this Knowledge Sharing Forum comment suggested embedding hazard management as an add-on to existing community group functions (e.g., animal owner groups, faith communities, outdoor recreation clubs) rather than building standalone wildfire adaptation groups from scratch – whereas such groups may already have strong roots in the local community.
Who gets to participate?
The theme from the questions that we received at the Knowledge Sharing Forum revolved around something we think is fundamental: the gap between state-agency-led, community centred initiatives, and genuinely community-led action.
Participants observed that community-centred initiatives led by fire agencies are valuable, but they can’t substitute for communities having real agency in the fire hazard reduction planning and decision-making processes. The bridge between government-delivered programs and community-initiated action cannot be fully constructed from the top down.
Some fantastic questions that we received included: “How do we define shared responsibility; [does it only require] clear roles? Flexibility? Are we doing our own things together, or are we working together across our roles?” The answers to these questions will vary, but understanding how different people and groups across society are thinking about it can help us to think more broadly about how, when and why different people might be seeking to share responsibility.
What’s clear from our research is that shared responsibility must be something that local communities are genuinely allowed to participate in, beyond their private properties, and it needs some clarity about what individuals can do in the broader landscape. That means that we need frameworks that answer practical questions, including: What vegetation can communities manage? What ecosystems need to be protected from fire and/or protected with fire? What does meaningful participation actually look like at the local level in this community?
These are questions about trust, legitimacy, and who belongs in the conversation about bushfire risk decision-making.
Note: This research is led by the Fire Centre (University of Tasmania) and supported by Natural Hazards Research Australia. If you’d like to know more about the study or discuss findings, feel free to get in touch: anna.gjedrem@utas.edu.au