Australian Trust For Conservation Volunteers

Over the year we have aimed to have impact at scale by focussing our programs into themed areas of biodiversity restoration, threatened species, the health of oceans, wetlands, and rivers, and on strengthening climate resilience. We have delivered initiatives that place conservation in the hands of everyone by using inclusive approaches to engagement and digital strategies. We know that working in nature towards conservation goals improves your physical and mental wellbeing, which is why our goal is to foster a community of individuals who feel inspired to build back nature in their local areas and beyond. Our programs strive to improve the ecosystems in which we live and the wellbeing of participants and the planet. Together with government, businesses, and Traditional Owners, we have leveraged our resources, and our passion to codesign projects that make a meaningful impact on a large scale, a summary of how the work has progressed is below: Sea The Change, our season of action for Oceans, Waterways and Wetlands sees us working with key partners and communities to not only remove harmful plastic pollution, but to highlight and influence the behaviours and systems that allow it to become a problem in the first place. We are also continuing vital work in priority wetlands, creeks and rivers across the country and through a series of on ground events our volunteers have contributed over 6,000 hours of time to remove 1,390kg of litter; 18,642 pieces being sorted and quantified to help us understand litter hot spots. Information on the type and amount of litter is provided to the CSIRO. One Future, Together, our season of action for Climate Resilience sees us taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts by helping communities become more climate resilient saving lives and livelihood. We have run events including a series of Urban Shading and Planting volunteering events to help strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climaterelated disasters and reconnect people and nature to improve health and wellbeing and reduce the impact of ecodistress. Over this season, volunteers contributed over 4,600 hours of time to help us plant more than 14,000 trees, and remove 189,914m2 of weeds. Build Back Nature, our season of action for Biodiversity and Threatened Species sees us engaging the community to build back nature into public greenspaces and residential backyards. We do this because we know that about half of threatened species live in urban areas, alongside 96% of the population. As our need for more urban homes grows, so do theirs so we have been providing ways for the community to improve existing habitat and create new habitat in nature reserves as well as in their own backyards. This has resulted in planting 11,031 trees and creating almost 150,000 m2 of habitat across our urban centres.