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From little plants, big forests grow: Urban Shade Forest planting season wrap-up (2025)

While the wet, cold and windy winter season sent many indoors, for us it marked one of the most exciting times of the year – planting season for the Urban Shade Forest initiative (affectionately known by our team as plant-a-palooza)! This year also marks an exciting milestone for the project: for the first time since launching in 2022, we hosted events across three states simultaneously!

Since May, our amazing teams in Western Australia, South Australia, and most recently South-East Queensland have been out in force, planting thousands of native seedlings to help bring nature back into our cities.

With the support of our project funders  – Chevron Australia and Caltex  – and our on-ground local Council partners – Campbelltown City Council, the City of Rockingham and Ipswich City Council – we’ve achieved some impressive stats:

Delivered 18 events across 3 unique regions

Planted 14,166 new seedlings across 4 worksites

Gave away 980 seedlings to the local community

Welcomed 731 amazing volunteers

Partnered with 34 community groups (including 3 First Nations organisations)

But this project isn’t just about planting. Volunteers also learned about the value of nature and urban green spaces through loads of hands-on, exciting activities. These included Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremonies led by First Nations Elders, building native bee hotels, crafting seed bombs, decorating pot plants with nature-inspired designs, and getting up close with native wildlife – like snakes, frogs, lizards and koalas – that may one day call our Forests home.

We’ve also given away hundreds of free native seedlings to schools, Scout groups, and our event attendees – empowering the local community to expand our Urban Forests by boosting biodiversity and adding cooling greenery to their campuses, businesses, backyards, balconies, and beyond.

Read on to hear about the key highlights of 2025 from each of our focus regions, straight from the perspective of our incredible project staff!

South Australia (in partnership with Campbelltown City Council)

Forest location: River Drive Reserve, Athelstone (on Kaurna Country)

Seedlings planted: 7,000 (+ 500 given away)

Volunteers welcomed:  397

Season snapshots, as told by our local staff, Rosie and Jacqui:

“It’s been so nice spending time at River Drive Reserve this year, planting along the beautiful River Torrens to the sounds of birds and frogs! It’s been awesome to have a diversity of volunteers helping out, with so many different cultures and age groups coming together to make a difference. This has also had ripple effects, with the groundswell of participants leading to more volunteering with our other projects in SA, but also with other local community groups.

It’s also been lovely to have positive interactions with the community as people walk by and see us working. There have been so many comments about how great the project is for the area. The sheer scale of the plantings and the visual impact is incredible – 7,000 seedlings look amazing when guarded! A really special moment this season came on our final planting day, when a massive flock of yellow-tailed black cockatoos flew overhead. It felt like the perfect tribute to our efforts this season.

Working with Campbelltown City Council has also been a joy. We’ve loved getting to know their team and having their support at events. Their no-fuss work ethic and positive attitude made each event a breeze. We’re already looking forward to next year’s events and watching the seedlings getting bigger and growing out of their guards as the years go by!”

Western Australia (in partnership with the City of Rockingham)

Forest location: Baldivis Children’s Forest, Baldivis (on Gnaala Karla Booja/Country)

Seedlings planted: 3,166 (+ 380 given away)

Volunteers welcomed: 171

Season snapshots, as told by our local staff, Maddy and Yas:

“It was inspiring to see corporate and community volunteers come together at Baldivis Children’s Forest, rolling up their sleeves to help restore a degraded bushland area. For both of us, being part of this effort alongside just over 170 passionate participants who together planted 3,166 native seedlings has been incredibly rewarding. Knowing that our work is creating lasting shade, improving habitat, and enhancing this important community space for both people and wildlife made every moment worthwhile.  A big shout-out to the Shah Satnam Ji Green S Welfare Committee and the Perth chapter of the JET Australia Foundation for turning up in force and lending a huge hand!

In Spring, we returned to the site for some maintenance days – weeding and watering to give the young seedlings their best shot at surviving summer. It was fantastic to see familiar faces nurturing the seedlings they’d helped to plant, alongside new volunteers eager to get involved.

One of our favourite moments this year? Spotting some of the local wildlife, checking out the new plantings… kangaroos bounding past, a noisy flock of Carnaby’s Cockatoos overhead, a sleepy pair of Tawny Frogmouths, and even a curious bobtail lizard! Moments like these remind us exactly why we do what we do, and just how much impact our volunteers have in bringing these habitats back to life.

Next year, the Urban Shade Forest Project in WA is on the move, heading to the City of Kwinana! We’re excited to bring the same energy and love for greening our cities to a brand new community. We can’t wait to see you out there for another amazing year!”

South-East Queensland (in partnership with Ipswich City Council)

Forest locations: Jack Barkley Park, North Booval and Small Creek Corridor, Ipswich (on the lands of the Jagera, Yuggera and Ugarapul People of the Yugara/Yagara Language Group)

Seedlings planted: 4,000 (+ 100 given away)

Volunteers welcomed: 163

Season snapshots, as told by our local staff, Alec and Shae:

“The Urban Shade Forest in Ipswich has been an amazing project to be a part of so far. Planting 4,000 seedlings across Small Creek and Jack Barkley Park was a huge milestone, and launching into a new region made it even more exciting. It’s been such a great chance to connect with an incredible community that we haven’t worked with before.

We had a great variety of volunteers come along to the plantings, with lots of new faces coming to their first CVA events. At our last planting event, we were thrilled to be joined by both the Mayor of Ipswich, Teresa Harding, and Councillor Andrew Antoniolli. It was great to see Cr. Antoniolli getting stuck into some planting with us – he seemed to have a passion for the environment, which was obvious to volunteers and other staff.

Ipswich City Council – in particular Jennifer Bonnett and her team – have been a fantastic partner to work with, and we’re looking forward to working with them more in the future. From a personal perspective? Large revegetation projects are a true favourite of ours. Watching them establish and grow gives us a real sense of pride and accomplishment.”

What’s next?

Now that the seedlings are happily growing in the ground, our teams are carrying out important maintenance work, watering, weeding and mulching our planting sites, before handing the reins over to our amazing local Council partners. These sites will receive the TLC they need to survive their first summer, eventually flourishing into biodiverse and resilient Urban Shade Forests of the future.

Missed out this year?  Good news! The Urban Shade Forest initiative will be back from mid-2026, providing you with plenty of opportunities to help green our cities and suburbs. To stay up-to-date, join our Facebook Groups in Western Australia, South Australia and South East Queensland.

 

Conservation Volunteers Australia’s Urban Shade Forest initiative is supported by founding partner Chevron Australia, Chevron’s premium fuel brand Caltex, and supported locally by Campbelltown City Council, the City of Rockingham and Ipswich City Council.