Engaging Communities: What Happens Behind the Scenes

Governments and their agencies play varying roles in relation to natural disasters. Strategies and policies are developed internationally, nationally and locally (see for example, UNISDR, 2007; Forest Fire Management Group, 2012; and FSC, 2013 respectively). Governments act in response to natural disasters for different reasons. In their research on three natural disasters in the United States, Trebilcock and Daniels (2006) refer to a range of perspectives/values with which to understand why and how governments intervene. A corrective justice perspective, for example, is when a government provides legal redress in the case of negligence. Others have focussed on disasters and critical infrastructure and the role governments have in its maintenance. Here it is argued that the growing interdependence and complexity of different systems, such as utilities, telecommunications and food transport, have increased their vulnerability to disruption from events including natural disasters (Boin and McConnell, 2007; Edwards, 2009).