Softly softly approach targets nature lovers

The Australian Conservation Foundation will avoid using alarming language about the environment in a bid to target new audiences this year.

Australian Conservation Foundation national campaign manager Jess Abrahams.

The Australian Conservation Foundation will avoid using alarming language about the environment in a bid to target new audiences this year.

Foundation research found 84 per cent of Australians believe the country’s nature is in a “good/excellent” or fair state and “don’t see a crisis to be addressed”.

“We need to capture the love (and) care Australians inherently have for their land (and) its creatures to motivate action,” the ­report reads.

“However, we will need to strike a careful balance between realism/pessimism (to educate people on the problems to solve) while not turning them off or ­disrupting their optimistic view of the world (and) nature’s future.”

Foundation national campaign manager Jess Abrahams said alarmist language worked for some who were already concerned about ­social and environmental issues.

“But there’s another group in society who love nature and who don’t necessarily feel and respond to alarmist messages in the same way,” Mr Abrahams said.

“The core of the challenge for our work in reaching these people is meeting them where they’re at, and helping them understand the seriousness of the problem without turning them off in the process.”

The group will try to target new audiences by hosting citizen ­science projects, tree-plantings and bushwalks. “It’s really simple activities like these that engage people’s love of nature, and start locally,” Mr Abrahams said. “Making small differences so people can see change locally is, in my experience, the best way to help people see that they can make a change at a bigger scale.”

The research also reveals similar rates of Liberal and Labor voters – 88 per cent and 90 per cent respectively – agree that a healthy natural environment is critical to the Australian economy. As well, 81 per cent of Nationals voters and 95 per cent of Greens supporters agreed with that statement.

The finding challenges the idea that voters aligned with conservative parties don’t believe in conserving the environment. When asked if they felt “deeply connected to nature in Australia”, 70 per cent of Labor supporters agreed, as did 67 per cent of Liberal voters.

Ninety per cent of Greens voters said “caring for our land is part of what it means to be Australian”, compared with 87 per cent of Liberal, 88 per cent of Labor and 85 per cent of Nationals voters.

The findings will spur the foundation to ramp up its advocacy this year to recruit more advocates – capable of lobbying their local MPs – for nature protection.

As a result of the research, a ­report prepared by FiftyFive5 concluded: “Nature is part of what it means to be Australian.”

Regardless of their political ­allegiance, 95 per cent of Australians agreed that it was important to protect nature for future generations.