Since 2005 Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) and Woodside’s employees have worked hand in hand, side by side with community coast care groups and conservationists to rehabilitate and protect coastal and estuarine environments.
United with a common goal of rehabilitating severely degraded pockets of Perth’s coastline, the Woodside Coastal Conservation Program has injected over 10,000 community volunteer hours into priority coastal conservation projects.
Working together in teams, CVA volunteers and Woodside employees have made a real and tangible difference supporting students, retirees, international travellers and local residents to get involved in the rehabilitation and protection of coastal estuarine environments.
This week Woodside’s employees in Karratha joined forces with CVA in the Millstream National Park in the Pilbara. The focus for the teams’ efforts to eradicate weeds which are restricting water flow into fresh water pools in the national park.
CVA has a strong support base with Woodside employees contributing more than 500 employee engagement days, representing over 4,500 volunteer hours.
In 2009 the Woodside Coastal Conservation program won the Coastal Marine and Estuarine Category of the West Australian Environment Awards, it was recognised for being a unique collaboration between government, the not-for-profit and resource sector and community volunteers.
Since then our partnership has evolved into an Australian-wide program – Coastal Guardians – a holistic approach to National marine eco-system conservation and environmental citizenship encompassing three core elements:
- Understand: A national network of projects to better understand marine turtles, pilot a national initiative to coordinate the land-based monitoring of migratory whales.
- Rehabilitate: Direct action to support priority conservation projects and capacity building of local coastal community groups.
- Protect: Investigate best practice and pilot models for managing community volunteering in disaster response and establish a program providing assistance to recovery programs.
Coastal Guardians builds CVA’s capability and provides the opportunity for CVA to demonstrate its leadership role in equipping Australian communities with the skills and knowledge to protect coastal and marine icons at a national and local level.
To date the Woodside-CVA Coastal Guardians program has seen CVA volunteers actively assisting in the Queensland Flood Recovery, undertaking icon rehabilitation programs at Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria and Kangaroo Island in South Australia while continuing the Woodside employee volunteering activities on Perth’s beaches and at Rottnest Island.
Coastal Guardians - Woodside and CVA are parterning to equip Australian communities around the country with the skills and knowledge to protect coastal and marine icons at a national and local level.
Woodside employees are enthusiastic participants in CVA activities, contributing over 4,500 volunteers hours to date.