Everything we do, every day, is powered by contributions from our incredible donors. This is the change you've made possible over the past 12 months... check it out!
Thank you for your support!
With every gift, you’re creating a better, brighter future for our reefs, rivers, forests and communities. These are just some of the success stories you've been part of over the past 12 months.
Our much-loved Reef
It was a tough week when we lost our court case against the federal government's approval of the Carmichael coal mine. But your support kept our campaign going strong!
In Melbourne and Brisbane, you helped us bring hundreds of people together to shine a light for the reef. We sang, danced and lit up the night with lanterns in colours of the reef.
Across the rest of the country, people everywhere petitioned Environment Minister, Josh Frydenberg, and called and spoke to their MPs – urging them to reject the mine and protect the reef. Together, we sent a strong message to the Environment Minister: Australians want a healthy reef, not more polluting coal.
In December, you helped us collaborate with other like-minded organisations to deliver over half a million signatures to Prime Minister Turnbull, saying no to a $1 billion government handout to Adani.
Thanks to your support, we’ll be back in the Federal Court in March to challenge our government’s approval of Adani’s polluting Carmichael coal mine.
This year, we're campaigning against Adani to make sure that no public funding goes towards the mine, urging banks and other businesses to do the same. And, we’ll be holding huge community campaign training to create a powerful, united movement, loud enough, large enough and strong enough to show our leaders that Adani’s coal mine has no place in Australia’s future.
Together, we will stop Adani’s Carmichael coal mine and prevent the mining giant from pumping out 4.6 billion tonnes of pollution that would damage our climate forever.
Thank you!
Thanks to your support, we'll be back in the Federal Court in March to challenge the government's approval of the Carmichael coal mine, which threatens the Great Barrier Reef. Photo: tchami, flickr
Clean energy, not pollution
It takes guts and conviction to speak out against the might of those with vested interests – the big polluting companies and politicians who forget they represent the people. Last year, you helped us hold decision-makers to account on their responsibility to cut pollution and shift to clean energy.
You helped us launch our Jobs in a Clean Energy Future report, demonstrating how our government can choose to create over one million new jobs across the country with strong climate and energy policies over the next two decades – jobs that have a future and are good for our future. This report models the consequences of our government's policy choices and the opportunities they can unleash – or block. Together with unions, we called on our government to make a long term plan to guide communities away from coal and help them prepare for good jobs in the future. The transition is underway, with coal plants, including Australia’s most polluting plant Hazelwood, closing.
Your support also enabled us to bring together 17 prominent people in Australia – CEOs of energy companies, scientists, academics, economists, bankers, lawyers, broadcasters and a former Governor General of Australia – to launch Our energy future – a plan to transition Australia to clean energy, in November. Together, they personally handed this to the Minister for Energy and the Environment, Josh Frydenberg. The blueprint was debated in Parliament and spread across the media. We will continue to brief key decision makers and politicians across the country to show them how Australia can transition towards a clean energy future.
With you, we’re creating a world that’s powered by clean energy – energy that’s good for everyone in our living world, not just the hip pockets of the big polluters.
Thank you!
Supported by the ACF community, a coalition of 17 prominent people delivered to the federal government a blueprint for a national clean energy transformation. Photo: Ricky Lloyd.
A powerful community
Last year, you enabled the ACF community to come together in greater numbers than ever before. More than 54,000 people joined ACF and today we are over 350,000 people strong - working together to create a brighter future.
In Canberra, you enabled us to deliver to senators our biggest petition ever, signed by over 105,000 people who want strong laws to protect life.
In the lead up to the 2016 federal election, you empowered the ACF community to show up and speak out at doorknock days, phone banking sessions, community forums, campaign training sessions and Count Me In events across the country.
Across seven key electorates in Victoria and Queensland, you enabled our community organisers to train and support hundreds of Australians to stand up for the future they believe in. Your donations put our candidate report cards on mobile billboards, so we could show local communities which candidates care about cutting pollution, supporting clean energy and protecting nature.
Thanks to you, we reached more than 1.9 million people with our scorecard, rating the environmental policies of major parties, so people knew what they were really voting for.
Together, we grew community power all over the country.
Thank you!
Before the federal election, we had thousands of meaningful conversations on the phone, at people's doorsteps, at market stalls and on the street - so communities knew what they were really voting for. Photo: Timothy Herbert
Places we love
In 2016, you helped us bring community, business, and government together to protect, restore, and connect critical habitats, water catchments, forests, and climate refuges along the Great Dividing Range.
You empowered thousands of people to email the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, asking him to create the Great Forest National Park. He has promised to support the continuation of the Forest Industry Taskforce process.
Your support means we can play a leadership role in the Taskforce's negotiations, contributing to the development of recommendations for establishing new national parks and reserves, protecting threatened species like the Leadbeater’s Possum, and ensuring a sustainable timber industry.
ACF is bringing community, business, and government together to protect, restore, and connect critical habitats, water catchments, forests, and climate refuges along the Range. Photo: Ali Sanderson
After a long struggle to secure the return of their ancestral homelands, we welcomed the handback of Shelburne Bay to the Wuthathi people of Cape York Peninsula. The newly created Wuthathi (Shelburne Bay) National Park will protect a unique and undisturbed landscape of brilliant white dunes, wetlands, heathlands and rainforests. This day will go down in history and it couldn’t have happened without your support.
The Cape York Peninsula Tenure Resolution program, supported by ACF, has now returned over 3.2 million hectares of land to Aboriginal ownership and created over 1.5 million hectares of new national parks and protected areas. To put it into perspective, that’s more land than between Melbourne and Sydney.
We advocated for a successful state government commitment of $29.6 million over four years to continue to resolve land tenure issues on the Cape and create new national parks and nature refuges under joint management with Traditional Owners.
In December, we welcomed the handback of Shelburne Bay to the Wuthathi people of Cape York Peninsula after a long struggle to secure the return of their ancestral homelands. Photo: Kerry Trapnell.
Great successes such as these are made possible through the ongoing generous support from people like you.
You give us confidence and hope that we can create a world that cherishes life, with clean water, shared sunshine and big old trees.
You inspire us. Our achievements are your achievements. Own them, be proud of them. We make this simple promise to you – we will never give up.
Thank you!
Your stories
The Australian Conservation Foundation is a diverse community of over 350,000 people who care. We are people who love a beach, a critter, a mountain range and a patch of bush. We come from all walks of life.
Laurel, Ross and Julie are three ACF donors who recently took the time to tell us why they give.
Laurel Tsang - Legacy Leader
“I was born in Shanghai and arrived in Sydney in 1951 when I was 10. I was rescued from the surf almost immediately (my mother had no idea about surf or the rip at Maroubra). I still fell in love with the beach and lifeguards.
"In the 1960s we joined ACF. My decision to make ACF a beneficiary of my will was made decades ago and is even more important now. I am often reminded of how fragile natural beauty is and that it requires constant vigilance.”
Read more about our Living Legacy community and how to give a gift in your will.
Ross & Julie Mallam - Olkola adventurers and Nature's Champions
"We joined ACF because we could see the seemingly inexorable shrinkage of our wonderful natural environment.
"In the 70s when our children were young, we camped around much of Australia, travelling through high country, deserts, tropical areas, coasts and beaches marvelling at the wildlife and particularly wildflowers.
"Last year, we were lucky enough to return to Olkola Country on Cape York. It has a special aura about it because the Olkola people, with help from ACF, now have their birthright returned to them and we felt privileged to be their guests. We were treated to sights that were either not available or obvious to us in the 70s and inspired that this area will now not be exploited for profit, but will be preserved by its owners forever in a natural state.
"We are inspired by and support ACF because it is well organised and has the reputation to connect a large and diverse membership with governments and industry to further the cause of conservation."
Learn how you can be Nature’s Champion by supporting us with a significant multi-year gift.
