Bushfire Recovery & Resilience

Anyone can help

We have been supporting bushfire recovery across the country with various projects since the 2019/2020 bushfires 

We have opportunities for people who want to take action to get involved. 

Get Involved

Support for Groups

We know there are many groups involved in recovery efforts or working on projects that increase the resilience of ecosystems for future events. We wanted to support that work through our practical safety management system so everyone getting involved could do so safely.   

With support of the Australian Government we provided the full 4th edition of our In Safe Hands Toolkit free of charge to many groups, along with full access to e-learning modules.  

Encapsulating our 40 years of experience in operating practical conservation projects   this safety resource is practical, simple, based on real world knowledge and has been proven to work.  

Newsletter Signup

We publish a newsletter with information about opportunities to be involved with CVA. You will receive a welcome email with some initial information and then no more than one email newsletter every month. 

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The aftermath of Black Summer

National Coordination of Environmental Recovery

Through support from the Australian Government Conservation Volunteers Australia has been working to help support the national environmental volunteering response to bushfire recovery. From our experience in other disaster responses, we knew that large numbers of people would contribute their time and skills to help with recovery.  

We also know that finding meaningful and appropriate outlets for that support quickly is challenging, assessment takes time, groups who need help can be quickly overwhelmed.  The Pandemic made that challenge much much worse and changed the recovery landscape. 

Based on that changed landscape we have been helping volunteers to contribute and direct their efforts to recovery actions that will help land, water and wildlife.  We will continue that effort including the support to groups through our In Safe Hands Toolkit. 

Beyond the terrible human and community impacts, we know that the environmental damage is enormous. Billions of native animals have been lost, many species are under threat and massive areas of habitat have been impacted. 

This disaster will continue to affect Australia for many years to come. 

About Bushfire Response & Recovery

We want to acknowledge the incredible work of Australia’s fire-fighting and emergency response services (and teams from overseas who joined the effort), which was and continues to be so reliant on volunteers. Those teams went above and beyond to save lives, homes, as well as protecting wildlife and important habitat where possible. 

In many areas across the country the assessment of losses caused by the 2019/20 fires continues, and planning and early stages of recovery are underway (somewhat hampered by Covid-19 initially). There is still significant work needed in the recovery. Fire grounds can continue to be dangerous long after the event – please check with local authorities before you enter any areas affected by fire. 

In Australia (and around the world), people still want to take action, yet struggle to know how to go about it. We have a proven track record of getting people involved in environmental restoration action and have the expertise, people and knowledge to support ecological communities that have been affected by the bushfires. We’re working closely with partners in affected regions to make sure people can be involved in this recovery. 

Restoring and regenerating patches of native bush and nature corridors plays a critical role in wildlife recovery, building resilience into landscapes. This is why we think it’s important to re-establish and connect high quality habitat wherever possible in collaboration with local community nature stewards – we call them Bushfire Refuges. This work is grassroots and practical, and crucial for helping local species and ecosystems impacted by bushfire and the impacts of climate change. It assists fire affected communities to mobilise and care for your part of the world.  

Our History Of Recovery Efforts

Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) was founded in 1982 in Ballarat, Victoria, to enable people to plant trees on weekends. CVA operates around the country, enabling thousands of volunteers to get involved with practical conservation activities to nurture stronger communities and resilient ecosystems. We are Australia’s community engagement experts. 

CVA supports people from all walks of life across Australia to get involved in activities that protect and restore the environment. In doing so, we have built a strong practice around community engagement, safe participation, and capacity building to support people in how to care for their environment. 

We have been heavily involved in past crisis and recovery activities across Australia and New Zealand. From bushfire recovery to floods and oil spills, we’ve been on the front line of community responses to emergencies, as well as shoulder-to-shoulder with the communities in their recovery efforts. We’ve worked in Victoria after Black Saturday, Queensland for the 2010-2011 floods and the Bay of Plenty at the Rena Oil Spill. 

From our experience in these disaster responses, we know that large numbers of people will selflessly contribute their time and skills to help with recovery over the many weeks, months and years ahead. Responding will require efforts at a scale that will only be known once affected areas are declared safe, and damage has been assessed. The sheer scale of the fires, the sensitive nature of many of the areas affected, and the numbers of wildlife that are displaced are enormous. We will continue to support volunteers to contribute and direct their efforts to recovery actions that will help land, water and wildlife.