Citizen Science
Citizen science involves public participation and collaboration to assist in scientific research. City of Melbourne’s Citizen Forester Program was established to facilitate a meaningful connection with the community to build a greener Melbourne. Citizen Foresters are trained and empowered to grow the urban forest and improve urban ecology by carrying out essential advocacy, monitoring and research tasks. Volunteering as a Citizen Forester is a fantastic opportunity to meet new people, learn new skills, connect with nature and build knowledge across our city.
Activities that Citizen Foresters will have the opportunity to participate in include habitat planting days and surveying our local wildlife, such as birds and insect pollinators.
If you're interested in becoming a Citizen Forester please register on Participate Melbourne.
Urban ecology and art
The City of Melbourne is interested in the crossroads of ecology and art as a way to connect more people with nature, in turn educating and inspiring people about the natural world.
As detailed in the Nature in the City Strategy, we want to enhance Melbourne’s reputation as a creative city by initiating and supporting regular ‘art and urban nature’ and other engagement projects to encourage a diversity of interactions with nature.
Examples of past projects include Batmania and Refugium, which were both held at Federation Square. Batmania was an exhibition by artist Kathy Holowko that featured 200 suspended grey-headed flying-fox sculptures in The Atrium, Federation Square. The Refugium exhibition was also held in The Atrium, and featured kokedama plant sculptures by the artist Tanja Beer. The exhibition focused on themes of biodiversity, resilience, and urban ecology.
If you are interested in collaborating with the City of Melbourne in this space please email nature@melbourne.vic.gov.au with your expressions of interest.