Eight grants totalling over $557,000 were awarded to Aboriginal community organisations and groups across the State as part of the NSW Environmental Trust’s Protecting Our Places (PoP) grant program for 2021.
NSW Environment Trust’s Aboriginal Programs Officer Maggie Bushel said the grants complement NAIDOC week 2021’s land-centred theme of Heal Country!
“POP is an on-ground grants program that supports Aboriginal community groups and organisations to develop cultural land management knowledge and practices, and it fits in beautifully with this year’s NAIDOC theme,” Ms Bushel said.
“It’s always rewarding seeing these grants come to life, to see Aboriginal people, communities and partners working together to protect, conserve and restore culturally significant environments through on-ground projects.”
One successful PoP grantee – The Gully Traditional Owners, based around Katoomba in the Blue Mountains – will further regenerate bush and re-establish vegetation in Blue Mountains Swamp and riparian corridors in the Gully Aboriginal Place.
Another successful grantee – Biraban Local Aboriginal Land Council in Toronto – will heal Country with cultural burns to control weed infestations, reduce the overall fire fuel loads while restoring the ecosystem by increasing local native vegetation.
Individual grants of up to $80,000 for projects planned and implemented over a three-year period are available under the Trust’s program.
The grants build the capacity of communities to plan and deliver environmental projects, where they can carry out environmental improvements and knowledge-sharing activities around landscapes of cultural significance to the local Aboriginal community.
Key people in the grantees’ organisations will take part in project management training and Aboriginal leadership mentoring and support at the start of their projects.
The NSW Environmental Trust’s Protecting Our Places grants program started in 2002.
