Purpose

The purpose of this report is to present the views of the Yarra Ranges Shire community engaged in EPA’s citizen science project Community led action plan for smoke: Yarra Ranges pilot.

Introduction

Throughout the year, community members from Yarra Ranges report poor air quality to Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) and the Yarra Ranges Shire Council (the council). These community members have expressed concerns about the impacts of smoke-generating activities on their health and the environment.

Air quality in the Yarra Ranges Shire is mostly good. EPA’s air quality data shows that Yarra Ranges Shire can sometimes experience poor air quality resulting from smoke generated by bushfires, bushfire hazard reduction and other land burning activities. More information is available in Air quality in the Yarra Valley: a summary of the state of knowledge (publication 1948).

Smoke can negatively impact: 

• community health and wellbeing
• regional agriculture for example smoke taint in wine grapes
• local economic activity such as tourism.

As part of this citizen science pilot project, we collaborated with the local community of the Yarra Ranges Council. The purpose of this pilot was to provide information on air quality and health, and for the engaged community to use this knowledge to develop a set of community-led actions to better address local air quality and health impacts.