Climate, disaster risk reduction, and libraries
Be Prepared. Be Resilient. International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction - Are you Ready 2024, United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction, 2024
As we close out International Day of Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR) and look ahead to Australia's summer months and bushfire season, this year's IDDRR theme "Are You Ready?" is prescient. Climate change means that more of our communities experience the devasting impacts of natural disasters, and libraries in Australia have a significant role to play in risk reduction.
Disaster risk reduction aims to prevent new disasters, lessen the impact of existing ones, and effectively prepare communities to handle disasters. DRR are the policies and procedures that lay the groundwork for building community resilience, protecting health, livelihoods and infrastructure, and ultimately saving lives.
Libraries, alongside our colleagues in museums, archives, monuments and other cultural memory institutions, are required to protect and preserve physical and digital collections. The United Nations University for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) states that, "When cultural heritage is compromised, it diminishes a community's connection to its past, disrupts the transmission of traditions and knowledge, and erases the tangible and intangible markers of its identity." UNESCO's newly released toolkit for disaster risk management for documentary heritage and digital archives is an excellent resource for memory institutions developing disaster management plans.
Australian communities are increasingly turning to their libraries during disasters of all scales - from providing refuge from extreme weather conditions to places of shelter at the onset of disaster. Libraries are providing safe infrastructure for temporary housing, access to critical information about services or where to find loved ones and continued learning for young people.
But as we work towards saying 'yes' to the question, "Are you ready?", we must also reflect on the first principle of DRR: prevention of new disasters. Libraries and cultural heritage institutions have a responsibility to lessen the climate impacts of their institutions and support climate education in their communities. DRR requires libraries to consider the extent to which we are accelerating climate impacts, and the extent to which we are prepared to respond to those climate impacts.
DRR further requires our institutions to embed respect, inclusion, and belonging into each activity. Historically minoritised groups are often first to feel the impacts of climate emergencies and remain most at-risk for loss of cultural heritage.
Done well, DRR efforts lead to the social-emotional wellbeing of communities reconciling with disaster. As the duration and cycles of disasters continue to expand, supporting social-emotional wellbeing is critical to the resilience and health of the communities we serve.