Welcome
Our Place
launch and workshop
Our Place
Community Survey
Regional Preliminary Results
August 2014
CSU Team: Helen Masterman-Smith, John Rafferty, Jillian
Dunphy, Shelby Laird, Jane Battersby
Key lessons
Lots more community knowledge, passion and activity,
than commonly realised
Practical barriers limit understanding and engagement
with each others
Difficult to address barriers without a common sense of
purpose and understanding
For participants, sustainability is about everything and
everyone
+ Who responded
+ Knowledge, interest and views
+ What residents want
Who responded?
 237 residents (H:56, D:68, A:113)
 69% women (61, 69, 77)
 46% not uni-educated (67, 66, 23)
 80% town residents (61, 72, 94)
Age Profile
120
100
80
18-29 yrs
60
30-49 yrs
50-69 yrs
70 yrs or over
40
20
0
H
D
A
Total
Knowledge and interest
 Only 21% lack confidence in knowledge of local
plants and animals (24, 14, 25)
 82% keen to learn more (77, 82, 85)
 76% willing to help (80, 72, 76)
 Over 100 respondents want more dialogue and
engagement with the project
Connection to nature
Nature Relatedness Scale (NRS): measures how connected
to nature participants feel: 4.10 (4.19, 3.99, 4.11)
Eg. compared to approx 3.5-3.7 for US/Canadian student and
employee groups in other studies
Want residents want?
Common sense of purpose
and understanding
To me
To the community
A healthy natural environment is
very important
86%
(86, 75, 93)
61%
(65, 61, 59)
A strong sense of community is
very important
82%
(87, 75, 84)
64%
(66, 66, 62)
“Without understanding, goodwill and cooperation progress will be slower”
Practical support
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
No obstacles
Time
Money
Information
Help from
others
Motivation
Negative
judgement
Not
necessary
“I’m not privileged enough to own my own home
… therefore I am not in control of insulation, solar
power or water, etc”
Community ownership and
innovation
% of respondents
"Collectively everyone"
"Elected governments"
"The one's making the profits"
What residents want...
Ongoing community dialogue to enhance a
common sense of purpose and understanding
Practical support for community-owned socioecological innovations that arise from this
dialogue
All of the Our Place projects address these
needs
Our Place Projects
1. Simply Greater Future Fair and Holbrook Community
Markets
2. Deniliquin Community Gardens Project
3. Deniliquin Community Recycling Project
4. Albury Neighbourhood E-group Project
5. Restorative Indigenous Garden, Koori Kindermanna
Preschool/Woomera Aboriginal Corporation, Albury
6. Backyard Habitat Club Project, Albury
7. Climate Impacts and Adaptations Citizen Science
Project, Albury