Resilience and Transformation: Preparing Australia for Uncertain Futures

Resilience and Transformation explores what factors contribute to Australia’s resilience, what trends are apparent, and what actions are required to better prepare us for the immediate and longer term future.

Resilience is a word used more and more across societies worldwide as decision makers realize that predicting and controlling the future does not work and that preparing for uncertainty and surprise is vital. Many viewpoints have emerged on how to assess and achieve resilience of individuals, organizations, communities and ecosystems, but rarely has the resilience of a nation been considered.

As Australia moves into a millennium that promises major economic, social, technological and environmental change, much of it potentially beyond our comprehension, Australia 21 has assembled some of Australia’s leading thinkers to give their perspectives on the extent and direction of resilience across our nations’ social, economic and ecological systems.

There is good news and bad, and a few surprises. One of the most confronting insights is that some aspects of Australia’s resilience are not desirable.

Steven Cork has blended ecology, physiology, psychology and economics as an internationally recognized researcher, advisor, facilitator and, for several years, as a policy officer in the Australian Government. He led CSIRO’s agenda-setting research on nature’s benefits to humans and played a leading role in developing the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s scenarios for the world’s possible ecological and social futures. He works now as a consulting strategist and futurist. He leads Australia 21’s ‘Tipping Points’ and ‘Resilience’ projects.