Backyard Buddies
An FNPW education initiative
- YEAR: 2007
- STATE: National
- FOCUS AREAS: Environmental Education/SDG 4: Quality education
- YEAR: 2007
- STATE: National
- FOCUS AREAS: Environmental Education/SDG 4: Quality education
Backyard Buddies is a free education initiative run by the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife. It gives you simple tips to transform your backyard into a safe and inviting habitat haven. Backyard Buddies are the native plants and animals that share our urban areas, waterways, backyards and parks. Backyard Buddies are also the people who value native wildlife and want to protect it. So you can be a backyard buddy too!
Connect your Backyard, create Green Corridors and help us support the Big Backyard – national parks across Australia. Your backyard, school yard, or local park is your very own bit of Australian wilderness, and it’s teeming with wildlife – even if you can’t see them all the time. Your backyard is a small part of our Big Backyard and Green Corridors that link our many national parks, giving safe passage and a safe haven for animals whose habits and habitats don’t recognise man-made boundaries.
You can explore, create and help your own backyard buddies, to help them survive and to thrive into the future.
FNPW support
Since 2007 the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife have funded and run through program through generous donations from FNPW supporters across Australia and beyond.
The Backyard Buddies program began in 2002 based in New South Wales and initially run by the NSW Department of Environment with funding from the NSW Environmental Trust.
Project overview
The Backyard Buddies program was developed by the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS) as a response to social research conducted in 2002. The research revealed that only one fifth of urban respondents would be interested in being involved in initiatives to conserve native plants and animals.
According to the research, however: conservation behaviours that are simple to incorporate into daily life are the most likely to be adopted.
Backyard Buddies was created to address a need to provide simple conservation tips
In 2007, the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife took over the program. Since then, under the Foundation, Backyard Buddies has operated as a national environmental education, awareness raising and engagement program. Backyard Buddies, enjoys the support of many schools, Councils, Catchment Management Authorities and the wider community.
Environmental education and threatened species conservation are key organisational strategies for FNPW. In 2017 the Backyard Buddies website was re-developed to encourage more engagement with the general community about wildlife in urban areas. Since that time an exponentially increasing audience has seen the BYB website grow to receiving over 1.5 million views per year. One of the top 10 areas of interest on the site is information regarding injured wildlife & rescued wildlife.
The 2002 NPWS Report: ‘Urban Wildlife Renewal – Growing Conservation in Urban Communities’
Image Courtesy of Alyson Boyer
BYB WEBSITE
JOIN THE BYB COMMUNITY
Join the Backyard Buddies community through our Facebook page and monthly B-mail.
Get ideas about how you can create a habitat haven in your backyard and learn more about your favourite backyard buddies.
HABITAT HEROES
HABITAT HEROES are a special group of FNPW donors. They provide monthly gifts on an ongoing basis, forming a fund that we know we can count on as a steady resource for our important work.
You can show your support for the long-term restoration of our damaged landscapes by committing now to join us as a Habitat Hero.