Community groups are helping to rehabilitate weed choked native vegetation, enabling it to regenerate and thus, restoring native biodiversity. Find your local group and lend a hand.

Years of neglect have stripped our urban creeks, parks and roadways of vibrant indigenous vegetation. It's time for us to remedy this erosion of our natural heritage. We can bring a diverse range of birds and creatures into our daily lives and would be creating a sustainable living space in step with Australian conditions. If we regenerated astutely we could even lower the temperature in our cities and make them more pleasurable places.

How to do it now!

Create a native or indigenous garden
Convert your patch (or even just a part of it) to a larder for local birds and wildlife. (See our 'Grow an Indigenous Garden' action for some great tips and hints).

Contact your local council
Many city councils, rivers and creeks have community groups working to improve and regenerate neglected and degraded natural areas. Bushcare groups, 'Friends of ...' groups or simply concerned citizens pick up rubbish, work with councils and raise funds for local regeneration projects.

Find an urban regeneration group in your community
The following sites have regeneration groups in urban and rural areas and may list a group local to you:

• Wollondilly Community Nursery

• Greening Australia (National)

• Landcare (National)

• Sustainability Street (National)

• Conservation Volunteers (National)

Regenerate your street. Lobby your state and local government to start putting overhead wires underground and regenerating the streetscape with native plants (which will attract native birdlife). This will also improve shade to the roads and reduce heat absorption (and storage) in summer.

Even better, get your neighbours together and plant out your nature strip with native plants or create an 'edible street' using fruit trees. Of course check with your local council first!

Why is this action important?

Raising the quality of the natural environment in our local rivers, creeks, parks and roads increases our appreciation of nature and our day-to-day enjoyment of life.

Walking out your front door into a shaded street on a hot day and seeing a flock of Rainbow Lorikeets playing in a flowering gum helps us to feel relaxed and healthy and encourages a sense of community in our neighbourhoods. It's good for the environment and good for you! 

Environmental benefit

To stabilise and reverse the declining Australian biodiversity and avoid the continued shrinking of our natural systems we need to revitalise our appreciation and protection of nature. By working to bring native flora and fauna into our daily lives we are exploring, in a real and joyous way, our responsibilities as environmental guardians of this land.

Wellbeing benefit

Modern living is fast paced and stressful. The ability to slow down and relax is of increasing value. When we seek relaxation we often gravitate to nature: we watch the sea roll in, walk in a rainforest. Studies have revealed that people who have been hospitalised recuperate faster when their room looks out onto a park rather than a car park. We also know that people who have pets live longer. Let's enrich our lives by bringing nature back into our daily experience.