Healing the scar: acknowledging how impacts on regional resource-dependent communities impact their ability to engage in transition. A case study from the Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia

Resource-dependent communities around the world are undergoing substantive transformation, in order to de-carbonise. How individuals within these communities engage with and respond to these transitions is dependent on many factors. One often overlooked is trauma that has been experienced within these communities—due to dispossession of land, health burdens or loss of employment. Drawing on findings from two studies undertaken in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley—the first investigating the views of stakeholders on community wellbeing as part of the Hazelwood Health Study and the second the views of members of Latrobe Valley communities on post-mining rehabilitation options for existing open-cut pit voids—we argue that recognising psychological trauma in response to past experiences, present concerns and future desires is an important initial step in planning for a post-mining world and foundational to implementing a just change (Erfan 2017 Plan. Theory Pract. 18 34–50). We explore these representations of trauma, loss and grief connected to impacts on country, human health and the identity of the Latrobe Valley, recognised in both studies and consider how this region’s history must be acknowledged so that communities will be capable of envisioning a brighter future.