Fire, tsunami, pandemic: how to ensure societies learn lessons from disaster

When catastrophes like a pandemic strike, how do we make sure societies learn – and implement – lessons from disaster? We talk to three researchers coming at this question in different ways. First, a story from northern Australia about how Indigenous knowledge that can help to prevent natural disasters has been with us for thousands of years. We speak to Kamaljit Sangha, senior ecological economist at the Darwin Centre for Bushfire Research at Charles Darwin University in northern , what happens when a country with a long history of preparing for disasters, faces something it didn’t predict. With Elizabeth Maly, associate professor of international research at the Institute of Disaster Science at Japan’s Tohoku University. And third, use the recovery from a disaster like the pandemic as a catalyst for change. We speak to Ian Goldin, professor of globalisation and development at the University of Oxford in the UK. And Julius Maina, East Africa editor at The Conversation in Nairobi, reco