Join the Institute for Water Futures for a seminar by Dr Marwan El Hassan on implementing social-ecological resilience theory using the Future Drought Fund as a case study. 

About the Seminar

Impacts of climate change on social-ecological systems are intensifying at an alarming rate. This is manifested, for example, through more frequent, longer and more intense droughts. It is well-established that the complexity of these issues requires proportional systems-based adaptation approaches to build resilience and achieve sustainability. There is mounting evidence that piecemeal, business-as-usual approaches to do that are no longer enough. The Australian and State and Territories governments, and the agriculture sector, clearly commit to sustainability, adaptation and resilience to a changing climate in the National Statement on Climate Change and Agriculture. These commitments underpin multiple government initiatives and programs, one of which is the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s Future Drought Fund (FDF). The FDF offers a unique pathway to achieving sustainability through building drought and climate resilience. It is founded on robust scientific principles of social-ecological systems resilience. FDF funds projects with the aim of enabling farmers and communities to learn about, be prepared for, and have the capacity and options to respond to drought and other climatic shocks, including through transformational changes. In this presentation I will provide an overview of how FDF implements key resilience principles and fosters collaboration and collective adaptive learning and action to achieve shared resilience and sustainability outcomes. I will give a quick summary of progress to date and examples of FDF-funded programs. Lessons learned so far, and a discussion of the opportunities and challenges facing FDF will be used to highlight the important role that it can play in the broader ecosystem of drought and climate resilience interventions.

About the Speaker

Dr Marwan El Hassan is director of the Program Evaluation and Support team at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s Future Drought Fund program. He previously held different roles in FDF over the last 5 years. Marwan’s team is responsible of supporting the design and delivery of FDF programs, focussing on embedding robust monitoring, evaluation and learning culture and approaches, as well as social-ecological resilience (SES) principles. Marwan did a B.Sc. in Agriculture and M.Sc. in Animal Science, and a Graduate Certificate in Forestry before completing his PhD in sustainability at the Fenner School of Environment and Society in 2019. In his PhD project he addressed the issue of managing free-ranging goats in the Australian rangelands, a contentious, complex problem influenced by the pest vs resource conundrum around goats. He applied SES methodologies to explore existing and emerging paradigms influencing various actors and groups in the goat SES and propose ways for sustainable management of both the industry and natural resources. Marwan is currently affiliated with ANU, as an Honorary Lecturer at FSES and co-lead of the Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience research cluster at ICEDS. His research interests are broadly around sustainability, particularly resilience theory, human ecology and other social-ecological systems-based approaches. Marwan’s role in the FDF most importantly includes contribution to bridging gaps and building networks of collaboration and shared learning at the interface between research and policy, something he is particularly passionate about.