WORKING FOR NATURE
14th November, 2022
Hundreds of volunteers have contributed to the Community Capacity Assessment 2021 (CCA2021) over the last year. The journey to uncover the invaluable work of environmental groups has been astonishing, and the report is out now.
The CCA2021 aims to provide a holistic understanding of community groups engaging in Natural Resource Management (NRM) and seeks to make the voices of environmental volunteers heard.
The assessment demonstrates the value and contribution of environmental community volunteers and has generated results that will directly benefit and inform volunteers and their partners such as NGOs, land managers and LGAs.
As the findings of the CCA2021 indicate, the 216 participating volunteers contributed over 113,800 hours of volunteering labour, worth almost S5.47 million dollars. This is a conservative estimate, considering most of these volunteers work in different groups.
Further data in the study reveals that between 2017 and 2021, participants reported a significant decrease (25.6%) in joint on-ground work by local government in support of community groups.
Additionally, many groups stated they do not receive sufficient guidance and support to learn about Aboriginal cultural heritage and consult with the Traditional Owners.
Even though the report identifies issues and gaps it also provides bright spot case studies from which we can learn and get inspired. Volunteers are solution oriented.
We are delighted that this project has given rise to the Environmental Umbrella Group Collective (EUGC). The group includes organisations such as SERCUL, UBC, Perth NRM, AGLG, EBICG, JCCCF, WALGA, WALN, DBCA, and CMCN.
These organisations decided to come together and work collectively on shared and systemic issues in the sector, and to improve the support they provide to environmental community groups by strengthening partnerships and fostering capacities.
We would like to acknowledge all the people that contributed time for interviews, participation in the co-design workshops, the completion of the survey and the organisation of the Celebrating Community-Driven Conservation event that was held at the WA Museum.
For those who want to continue taking part in the discussion of how environmental volunteering in the Perth region can be shaped in the future, we invite you to join the PNRM Enviro Network | Facebook.
Click on this link to view the report.
For any queries related to this project please contact [email protected].
This project is supported by funding from the Western Australian Government’s State NRM Program.
Partners
We acknowledge and appreciate the support of all our partners, supporters, funding bodies and sponsors.
