Where it started…

Emma created The Heart Gardening Project being inspired by a few things..

• the feeling she couldn’t shake around the earth being smothered in concrete and tarmac

• the calls to action by world leaders like Sir David Attenborough

• the fact that she had to make up for lost time due to 12 years of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

• wanting her daughter to grow up with nature in an urban environment

Then the 2020 bushfires hit. Like everyone, Emma was devastated and the fact that no government action was being taken in the city around healing the empty barren undernourished spaces gave Emma the hugest kick up the butt.

When challenges at The BEE Gardens forced Emma to stop works for a while she thought that that sucked…then went and helped local Jenny create her bee garden in the next street. Seeing the joy and positive action radiate out from these two garden sites saw the real start of The Heart Gardening Project!

Why THGP exists…

Why THGP exists

• There is too much public land going to waste

• While the Climate Crisis has escalated, there is not nearly enough being done around increasing diverse public plantings to help engage community, increase biodiversity and start to address urban environmental issues

• Native pollinators are disappearing fast and replanting a version of their bush habitat is the thing we can do to help immediately

• Disconnection from other humans and nature is such a mammoth problem that it is creating massive mental health issues such as loneliness and depression

Our vision…

To heal humankind by creating biodiversity in our cities

Our mission…

Through the creation of wildlife corridors on public land for humans and nature to come together, we aim to give people who want to create positive environmental change a way to do it successfully and quickly. We aim to combine these individual efforts to increase biodiversity and improve mental health in our urban areas, making a positive and joyful difference to our world.

10 year goal…

(from 2021-2031- these dates run in line with the UN’s Decade of Ecosystem Regeneration)

• completion of 200 gardens in the MPC zone by the end of 2023 after which the MPC zone will be expanded throughout Melbourne

• maintenance systems worked out for the MPC

• Using the MPC as a proof of concept, THGP will demonstrate to people around Australia and the world what can be done to increase biodiversity in our public urban spaces

• THGP helping to create other pollinator corridors

• 10 years of citizen science from the MPC, looking at connecting indigenous culture and thinking to western science

• policies and guidelines opened up around street gardening

• creating successful and quick positive change that everyone can be a part of, making the biggest impact possible to our world increasing biodiversity and improving mental health

Values…

• Caring for our country- upholding indigenous culture as the one to learn from and supporting reconciliation through re-planting erased indigenous plants

• Healing- helping reconnect humans to the parts of themselves that need nature and diversity

• Diversity- with fauna, with flora, and humans, bringing them all together

• Creating- diverse gardens on public land, beauty, community, joy and life

• Connecting- people to nature, people to people, nature to nature…and all of that to science

• Learning- from every part of this journey- science, people and nature.

• Urgency- acting now to save our ecosystems and precious biodiversity