Australia’s population is among the most urbanised in the world. In the suburbs, schoolyards bake in the heat. Asphalt surfaces reach above 80°C on hot days and many schools have almost no shade. Through our Cooling the Schools program, we’re planting thousands of native trees in schoolgrounds, bringing back canopy cover that cools playgrounds, supports local wildlife, and makes outdoor spaces healthier for learning and play.

We’re working alongside local landholders and Traditional Owners in the Great Barrier Reef catchments to stabilise streambanks, replant native vegetation, and give breathing space to wetlands choked by invasive aquatic weeds. Bringing waterways and wetlands back to life not only means there’s more safe havens for migratory birds and fish, it also means there’s cleaner water to support the health of the Great Barrier Reef.

The 2019–20 bushfires tore through Kangaroo Island, stripping away the sheoak woodland that the critically endangered Kangarooo Island Glossy Black-Cockatoos depend on for food and shelter. We’re working with South Australian landholders to plant more sheoak woodland as ‘insurance habitat’, protect regenerating patches, and reconnect fragmented habitat.

Less than 1% of Victoria’s original Western Plains grasslands survive intact — the rest cleared for agriculture, leaving ecosystems fragmented and struggling to function. We’re partnering with landholders across the Victorian Volcanic Plains to re-establish native grasses, wildflowers and vegetation at landscape scale, using locally-suited species selected for the conditions these landscapes will face in the future. Slowly, isolated patches are reconnecting — and the land is beginning to work again.