Contact
Cassia Read
cassia.read@castlemaineinstitute.org.au
Organisations Involved
ADAPT Loddon Mallee
WWF Australia
Mount Alexander Shire Council
Castlemaine Institute
West End Resilience
Themes
Wilderhoods is a community-led project that aims to create networks of urban habitat and connect people with nature and neighbours. Through knowledge sharing and a regenerative design process, Wilderhoods supports residents to develop an ecologically informed and achievable vision for their shared habitat. Our workshops activate human and natural potential to regenerate habitat, wildlife and community.
The Wilderhoods project was initiated in 2020 by ecologists at the Castlemaine Institute. In 2021 Mount Alexander Shire Council funded a community workshop on creating habitat and connection in urban neighbourhoods. This was followed in 2022 with funding from the Adapt Loddon Mallee program to run a pilot workshop series in the West End neighbourhood, providing knowledge & tools to enable the community to co-design and create more habitat in their gardens and public spaces. The West End Wilderhooders now meet regularly to create grassland gardens for birds and insect pollinators in their neighbourhood.
Wilderhoods has recently been funded by WWF-Australia to continue to design and test our co-design approach and develop decision tools for collaborative, neighbourhood scale re-wilding.
ZNET: emission avoidance and drawdown
- Carbon drawdown through creating biodiverse habitat in urban areas
- Passive cooling effect of greener urban areas reduces demands on powered cooling systems
ADAPT: people, places and sectors are climate ready
- Supporting neighbours to connect through urban habitat creation
- Knowledge sharing and skill building around rewilding, living with extra humans and understanding habitat.
- Establishing urban habitat corridors and refuges that help wildlife survive.
- Creating shared green spaces that support mental health and builds communtiy identity
- Contributing to the conservation of regional biodiversity
REGENERATIVE CULTURE: embrace caring for Country and Community, working creatively and a just society
- Tuning-in and learning about nature in our neighbourhood increases our sense of wonder and valuing of the indigenous plants and animals who call our neighbourhoods home
- Neighbourhoods working together to co-design and create thriving landscapes will enable people to Care for Country in a just and holistic way
