Wow! We’ve been completely blown away by the results of ACF Investigates: Habitat Destruction—our first crowdsourced investigation project.
At ACF, we know habitat destruction is one of the major issues contributing to Australia’s nature crisis. We live in a big country where critical habitat clearing often goes unseen and undocumented.
This is why the project was critical in shining a light on this problem. The ACF Investigations Unit will be following on from the community's amazing work, investigating each and every event of land clearing community investigators have identified.
For me, this was a way that I could make a change, in however small of a way. From the comfort of my own home and only costing a little of my time, no less.
Brodie, 20yo, Victoria
We launched the investigation in February, and the ACF community really turned up. The results are in, and the impact has been incredible.
In just four weeks:
- 2,100 volunteers took part in the project from Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Sweden, Bolivia, Canada, China, Italy, Malaysia, Monaco, Netherlands and Sri Lanka
- 3,681,000 hectares of at-risk native habitat were scanned by these volunteers
- 41,051 tasks were submitted, over an estimated 2,052 hours—that's over a year of full-time investigation, completed in less than four weeks!
- 371 posts created in the ACF Investigates discussion forum
- 2,045 locations across Australia were analysed
Australia is a world leader in nature destruction, and the only developed country that's a global deforestation hotspot. We also have one of the worst animal extinction records in the world.
The results from ACF Investigates show people are keen to take action to protect nature— now it’s time our federal government did the same.
Being able to see in front of you just how much of the Australian landscape is being cut down is really impactful
JamieA, 19yo, South Australia
Australia’s environmental laws continue to allow illegal land clearing to happen. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to run a project like this, but your support means we’re able to keep a watchful eye on this, and protect and restore nature and wildlife in our big backyard.
Let’s keep the momentum going, sign our petition calling on the Australian government to establish national environment laws that actually protect nature, and an independent regulator to enforce them.
And sign up to be the first to know about our future ACF Investigates projects.
