People Place Partnership – Dongara and Port Denison, WA

Located 369 kilometres north of Perth, Western Australia, within a semi-arid zone, there is a small regional community where the concepts of volunteering and partnerships flourish and provide fertile ground for developing self-sufficiency and innovative capacities. This community of around 3,600 people mostly live in the twin towns of Dongara and Port Denison, within a local government area known as Shire of Irwin. The towns straddle opposite banks of the Irwin River, and are wedged on the coastline between the vast agricultural lands of Western Australia’s wheatbelt to the east and the even vaster Indian Ocean to the west.

The report People Place Partnership Sustainability and Resilience paper tells the story of how the innovative Shire of Irwin utilised community engagement and created strategic partnerships to help the community develop place-based strategies to improve climate change related environmental sustainability and resilience. This was achieved by developing: A Green Infrastructure Strategy and Coastal Hazard Risk Management and Adaptation Plan.