Cumberland Stepping Stones: Community Corridor Evaluation, Greater Western Sydney

Cumberland Plain Woodland (CPW) communities are endemic to Western Sydney and have been reduced to less than 6% of their original extent due to extensive clearing for agriculture and urban development. Remnant patches are present but are small and scattered, degraded by human disturbances and weed invasion. The Cumberland Conservation Corridor comprises three priority corridors in Western Sydney and is supported by the Australian Government’s 20 Million Trees initiative. Greening Australia was awarded a $2.889m grant to support the ongoing conservation efforts across this corridor with the aim of enhancing ecological connectivity. Recognising the importance of engaging people in active environmental restoration, Greening Australia included a strong community engagement component – ‘the Community Corridor’ – in the Cumberland Stepping Stones (CSS) project. The Community Corridor targeted four key participant groups – schools, corporate volunteers, community Bush Care groups and private landholders – across 6 Western Sydney Local Government Areas to undertake planting within the Cumberland Conservation Corridor. Over a 12 month period, close to 75,000 native tubestock were planted or provided as give-aways across the 43 community sites. The Community Corridor project engaged more than 3,000 people, the majority of whom were students. In the overarching CSS project, a total of 421,300 plants have been planted across Western Sydney. This study was asked to evaluate the Community Corridor CSS initiative and address the following question: ‘Is community engagement and education an effective methodology for biodiversity conservation?’ EVALUATION METHODOLOGY AND METHODS: The concept of ‘place’ was used as a conceptual framework for the study. Place links global concerns to local issues and is attuned to the specifics of people and their connection to their local environment. The research team acknowledges that a clear limitation of this study is the short timeframe in which to evaluate the impacts of this methodology for biodiversity conservation. Ideally, this study should be longitudinal to explore outcomes over the long term. The CSS project was implemented and evaluated over 2016/17. The study was designed using a mixed-methods methodology and gathered qualitative and some quantitative data through online surveys, individual interviews, focus groups, oral place stories, and field notes and observations. The study evaluation techniques employed a primary analysis for each target group and a meta-analysis based on a summative evaluation for the entire program. The meta-analysis considered project process, efficiency, effectiveness, outcomes and learnings. For each targeted community group the data was analysed according to the data collection instrument. The schools survey data was collated in charts and free text from the online survey responses. The corporate events were analysed using an inductive approach based on the individual interview responses, researcher visuals and field notes, with major themes identified and outliers noted. A similar process was undertaken for the Bush Care focus groups. The private landholder interviews were recorded onsite oral place stories and were analysed using a storyline analysis framework.