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Engagement at scale – Lillydale Lake

Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) is the nation’s leading practical environmental group and we want to engage Australians with building back nature—because now more than ever, we need to address the biodiversity crisis and we need to address it NOW.  

Yes, we’re passionate about creating a world in which people and nature thrive together by making conservation accessible, fun, and fulfilling for all. And through our storied 40-year legacy of community involvement and now app-led conservation activities, we’re committed to ensuring that Australia’s natural wonders and unique biodiversity continues to thrive for generations to come. We do this by building and activating a community of people taking a million actions for nature by 2026. 

The world is experiencing a biodiversity crisis, driven by land use change, resource exploitation, invasive species, pollution, and climate change, which all pose a significant threat to wildlife.  

We all urgently need to take action for nature now to help halt and reverse nature loss, through increasing the health, abundance, diversity and resilience of species, populations and ecosystems. 

Just this year alone, we’ve seen nearly 7,000 volunteer actions and over 40,000 volunteering hours recorded with CVA. 

And here is an example from CVA’s very own past on how we create impact at scale.

Phil Harrison, our CEO, was down in Melbourne recently and found himself driving by Lillydale Lake in the city’s east. He hadn’t been there for years (over 30 years in fact). Not since CVA had done a planting event there. 

Lillydale Lake was one of the first major projects that CVA ever did. In 1984 the area was subject to heavy flooding. The manmade lake was designed to be a retention basin to stop such devastating flooding happening again. 

As part of the design, there needed to be thousands upon thousands of trees planted. And guess what? CVA and our great volunteers did a big chunk of them – including our one millionth tree being planted by renowned Australian artist Clifton Pugh.

Skip ahead 30 years and now those trees are all grown up and have become a part of the community’s landscape in a wonderful park rich with native biodiversity that did not exist 30 years ago.  

THIS is engagement at scale and this is what CVA does best. 

Our quiet, purpose-driven day-to-day work and actions has a significant impact on the environment and the communities around us. We know that small individual actions can make a meaningful collective impact. Just look at Lillydale Lake to see that philosophy in action. 

If you’d like to take action for nature, download the CVA Community Hub app today and connect with local people in your area who want to make a difference. 

Hear about local volunteering events near you, or learn how to make your very Nature Block, a small batch of native biodiversity that will us help build back nature.