Taking risk to reduce risk

To prevent catastrophic bushfires, First Nations communities light small, deliberate fires – an ancient practice that offers a modern approach to risk management as our climate changes.

Practiced for tens of thousands of years, cultural burning uses low-intensity, thoughtfully timed fires to care for Country and reduce the build-up of fuel that drives catastrophic bushfires.

Unlike broad-scale hazard reduction burns, cultural fire is localised to each ecosystem. Practitioners read seasonal indicators – the flowering of plants, the movement of animals – to decide when and where to burn, protecting culturally significant sites and reducing the risk of destructive bushfires. 

Oliver Costello, a Bundjalung man from the Northern Rivers, is a practitioner in cultural fire and landscape restoration. He founded the Firesticks Initiative to promote traditional knowledge systems and practices, and is also a NSW Net Zero Commissioner.

When undertaking a cultural burn, risk sits in Oliver’s peripheral vision rather than at the centre of the frame, he explained during the Taking risk to reduce risk session at AdaptNSW Forum 2025. His focus is on the positives and the opportunities, as much as the risk.

“We see the weeds and we see the structural problems and the challenges there,” he said. “But we also see all the healthy things.” 

Cultural burning practices treat risk as something to be managed steadily over time, not avoided altogether. Our values should guide our actions, Oliver suggested. 

“There is risk in everything and we can be fully consumed by that… [or] make decisions and take action… What we care about should be driving our thinking.”

“The best thing is to pay attention – to be really aware about what you care about and what your values are.”

Oliver Costello, Executive Director and NSW Net Zero Commissioner, Jagun Alliance Aboriginal Corporation and NSW Net Zero Commission

When avoiding risk creates it

If cultural burning shows how taking measured risk can prevent catastrophe, the question for government is more confronting: how do we create space for informed risk inside modern institutions?

Ben Hart, Managing Director of Fireside Agency and moderator of the session, framed the challenge directly. Governments operate in a volatile world where “risks seem to be ratcheting up all the time,” he said.

Meanwhile “the systems holding our society together were built on the assumption of a stable climate” and “that stability is clearly ending”.

Climate adaptation requires experimentation, “but for governments and their leaders, the adverse impact of failure often looms far larger than the potential gains from success”.

Dan Etheridge, Engagement Director at Living Lab Northern Rivers, offered two examples of how risk settings must evolve in response to climate change.

Following the 2022 floods, disaster recovery collided with an existing housing crisis in Lismore. Innovative proposals emerged to deliver new types of housing, but public funding requirements relied on precedents and comparable market examples.

“The risk was identified as being too great because of a lack of proof, and it resulted in the thing that needed to happen, not happening,” Dan said.

Dan also pointed to the state’s home buyback program as a positive example of taking risk. A condition of vacant possession meant some landlords were required to evict tenants before properties could be acquired. For many residents, there was nowhere else to go.

Community representatives and government staff came together to work through the dilemma. Leaving people in place carried risk. Evicting them carried greater risk. “I think that's where there was some risk intelligence applied”.

The solution – a temporary licence-to-occupy pathway with evacuation plans and clear conditions –required, in Dan’s words, a “more nuanced understanding of how to navigate risk”.

Constraint as catalyst

Ingrid Emery, Executive Director of Regional Delivery at the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, argued that “constraints can often lead to people being more innovative”.

She pointed to the Everlasting Swamp blue carbon demonstration project, where teams have worked within complex policy and regulatory settings to restore mangrove systems and enhance carbon storage. The work has challenged assumptions, navigated planning approvals and, at times, reshaped the frameworks themselves.

The lesson, Ingrid suggested, is to interrogate whether a barrier is fixed, or simply inherited. “What’s actually the physical or policy or regulatory barrier and what do we need to do to change it?”

“In order to overcome risk aversion, you need to [have] a growth mindset and ask ‘why not?’.”

Ingrid Emery, Executive Director of Regional Delivery, NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

Across the discussion, one theme surfaced repeatedly: relationships. Trust, vulnerability and transparency change the terms of engagement. Ben noted the “reservoir of creativity and intelligent risk” among those working for public good.

In post-disaster settings, Dan has seen communities shift from anger to collaboration when leaders shared information openly and acknowledged ambiguity.

Oliver extended the observation. It is not only leaders who must adapt. “It’s on us as well,” he said, “to build the relationship, to give politicians the confidence to be more authentic and honest with us.”

Around a cultural fire, Oliver said, people gather to share knowledge. “It is a safe place to learn around the campfire.” Risk is understood collectively, and responsibility is shared.