To support more Canberrans and their environmental projects, the ACT’s Environmental Grants program has been revitalised with improved guidelines and an increase in funding.
“Our community plays an important role in conserving, promoting, and protecting our environment, and the Environmental Grants program empower Canberrans to undertake that environmental stewardship,” Minister for the Environment Rebecca Vassarotti said.
“I want to ensure that environmental groups have more time and funding to do what they do best – caring for country and our precious environment.
“I am delighted to announce that there will a funding increase to the Environmental grants program for the first time since the grants were launched in 1997, with an additional $128,000 funding allocated.
“Over the past couple of years, we have also heard from environmental groups that the grant program was an administration burden for applicants, as they get bogged down in paperwork.
“After reviewing the grants program to focus on simplification and minimization of the administrative burden, I am delighted that we have reduced the application process significantly, halving the paperwork required with a focus on simplification in language to improve readability.”
This is the 25th year of the ACT Environmental Grants, supporting over 370 projects since 1997.
This year’s Environmental Grants program will particularly focus on the connecting people with nature, rewilding Canberra by enhancing biodiversity across urban areas, and lastly, enhancing ecological connectivity across our woodlands, grasslands, and aquatic ecosystems.
For the first time, the $480,000 allocated to ACT Environmental Grants program will be broken into three streams:
- ACT Environment Grants will fund projects to increase biodiversity and protect native flora and fauna of the ACT;
- Nature in the City grants will fund projects that assist with the urban cooling of Canberra; and
- Environmental Volunteer Group Assistance to support projects that help improve volunteer groups capabilities and capacity to deliver their important work.
“With a total of $480,000 available across the three funding streams, we will be doing everything we can to make sure community members receive the support they need to submit great applications,” Minister Vassarotti said.
