Renewable energy developers need to stop looking at farmers as “landholders” and treat them as businesses, a regional advocate says.
But that’s just the start of a change in the way energy and country people perceive each other, says Chris Sounness, CEO of the Wimmera Southern Mallee Development, and part of an energy collaboration project that wants to find better ways to bring the twain together.
Fierce opposition to renewable energy and transmission development has come out of Western Victoria, as initial questions and concerns have been enflamed by so-called grassroots social media campaigns.
Now movements are growing to try to rebuild broken communities.
Sounness frames it as “cumulative opportunities.”
