 April engagement forumAt our 2009 engagement forums participants told us that they wanted another forum early this year to further discuss the development of the Basin Plan. In response to that request we held a one-day forum in Canberra on 7 April 2010. The aims of the forum were to:
The day was very well attended with over 220 people coming from across the Basin and from a wide variety of interest groups. The Authority members were present for the whole day to hear what participants had to say and to answer questions. Basin Community Committee members were also present to listen to views and to give input where possible. An introductionParticipants were invited to attend an introduction to the Basin Plan session the day before the forum. This was offered to allow everyone to have a certain level of understanding of the plan before the larger forum the next day. You can view the Introduction to the Basin Plan presentation here. On the dayIn the morning our Chief Executive, Rob Freeman, released a report explaining our proposals for assessing the environmental watering needs of the Basin. We welcomed the discussion generated by this report, including the approach we have taken in identifying the proposed 18 environmental indicator sites. You can view Rob's presentation here In the afternoon Fraser MacLeod, Executive Director, gave a presentation on how we are using social and economic information to help us develop the proposed Basin Plan. This is a very important issue for MDBA and a very complex one. We are still working to incorporate all the information we have gathered on the socio-economic impacts into the proposed plan. You can view Fraser's presentation here What the facilitators told usSimilar to the December 2009 forums, we used external facilitators to help us develop and deliver the forum. On the day the facilitators ensured everything ran smoothly and acted as impartial observers. They have produced a report from their thoughts and observations from the day. This report can be viewed here. The facilitators have provided us with a list of questions that were asked by participants on the day. There are a lot of questions from the day and we aim to pull these questions together and answer them in themes as soon as possible. You can find answers to some of these questions throughout our website. List of questions from participants What you told usWe would like to thank everyone for taking the time to attend the forum and for those who gave us their constructive evaluation at the end. We will use this information to help develop future engagement activities and as a part of our monitoring and evaluation. This document provides a summary of the responses we received. What happens nextUp until mid-2010 we are developing the proposed plan that will then be released for public consultation. Between now and the release, we are attending conferences, fields days and roadshows to speak to you about the Basin Plan. You can see which events we are attending on our calendar of events. This list is continually updated as events are confirmed. You can visit our subscriptions page to register for:
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