System-wide adaptation for a safe climate future requires a significant shift at all levels. Yet, political responses remain slow, prioritizing economic growth over essential social outcomes like connectedness and care. The dominant economic paradigm reinforces individualism, repressing community-oriented engagement. As a result, communities face rising fragmentation, isolation, and environmental stress. Many feel disconnected, pessimistic, and ...
Nature Conservation Council of NSW
Sparking the Commons
GOAL
$14,474
Australia > NSW > Metro and Regional
Field of Interest
- Civic engagement and democracy
- Environment conservation and climate change
Target Population
- Flora / fauna
- General population
Nature Conservation Council of NSW
The Nature Conservation Council of NSW is the state’s leading environmental advocacy organisation. We represent over 200 conservation groups and 80,000 people across NSW, supported by a dedicated team of leading ecologists, scientists, campaigners and community organisers.
Our mission is to build, support and maintain a powerful and effective movement for nature. We do this by bringing together the NSW environmental movement through community building and organising efforts and running centralised campaigns that exert maximum pressure on decision makers. Meanwhile, our Healthy Ecosystems team are on the ground using the latest scientific evidence and practical expertise to improve the health of our forests, oceans, rivers, and wildlife, stop extinction, and improve the way we respond to and manage fire.
The Nature Conservation Council of NSW has for decades been organising communities to protect local environments and undertake activism across the state, and has experienced the successes and challenges of working in urban, regional, fire prone and disaster-hit communities.
Project Summary
System-wide adaptation for a safe climate future requires a significant shift at all levels. Yet, political responses remain slow, prioritizing economic growth over essential social outcomes like connectedness and care. The dominant economic paradigm reinforces individualism, repressing community-oriented engagement. As a result, communities face rising fragmentation, isolation, and environmental stress. Many feel disconnected, pessimistic, and vulnerable. Only 40% of Australians feel connected in their local community, and nearly 75% believe we are becoming less connected.
Local support systems lack preparedness for future crises. Writers, thinkers, and researchers stress the need to localise and strengthen community resilience.
Community development is an act of resistance against forces weakening relationships, disconnecting people from nature, and reducing local agency. By fostering care, connection, and contribution to the common good, this project will rebuild trust and collaboration at the grassroots level. It will help communities navigate challenges, cultivate resilience, and spark change.
Most community development projects in NSW serve regional areas where priorities, groups, and projects are established. Meanwhile, peri-urban communities are changing rapidly, facing declining connectedness, weak place identity, and greater exposure to climate crises such as heat islands, floods, and fires.
We will pilot an efficient method to strengthen connectedness and resilience in peri-urban Sydney. A short series of workshops, using established community development practices and visioning exercises, will spark local systems of care around a shared vision for the future, laying the foundations for a collective sense of values, identity, and local resources.
Project Outcomes
Communities are powerful spaces for transformation, where history, place, people, and purpose come together with the potential for change. However, transformation doesn’t happen on its own. Communities need a catalyst to ignite the process, sparking resilience and adaptation in times when energy is scarce.
The challenge is to reframe community engagement from burdensome to revitalising by providing communities with the space and permission to build a sense of belonging; a fundamental human motivation. Belonging drives communities to act together. By strengthening connection, identity and purpose, disaster readiness and nature defence become not just tasks but essential expressions of shared values.
By successfully executing this pilot, we can show that empowering communities in urban and peri urban areas to know each other, imagine a positive future and create local systems of care results in a tangible positive impact for individuals and the collective.
The pilot will demonstrate success through qualitative and quantitative impact:
Individuals - Growth in:
-Social connection and wellbeing (SIRI-SKM)
-Motivation for civic participation (Civic Engagement Scale)
-Disaster readiness (Community Disaster Resilience Toolkit)
-Knowledge & connection with local history & First Nations (self report).
Community - Increased reported:
-Engagement in resilience-building activities, showing increased agency.
-Participation in civic organisations.
-Connections with experts, planning for biodiversity, disaster readiness, energy independence, etc.
-Sense of collective present and future.
Community action toward:
-A safer climate.
-Protecting and restoring local environments.
-Growing community independence (e.g., food cooperatives, resource sharing).
-Disaster-readiness & plans for critical incidents.
Budget Breakdown
TOTAL BUDGET: $450,003
FUNDING
| Funding source | Amount |
|---|---|
| Funding Gap | $14,474 |
EXPENSES
| Expense item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Staff expenses | $9,367 |
| Event related expenses | $3,000 |
| Travel for greater Sydney community | $220 |
| NCC governance, administration, HR, events and CRM infrastructure, printing and office contribution | $1,888 |
Support Nature Conservation Council of NSW
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