Sutherland Shire Environment Centre
Item
Title
Sutherland Shire Environment Centre
Website Frontpage
Description
At Sutherland Shire Environment Centre, we’re working towards a cleaner, healthier and more beautiful environment that benefits us all now and into the future.
We’re actively involved in a wide range of projects aimed at greening the shire, environmental education, sustainable living and business and protecting against environmental threats. You can see more about these projects here.
Sutherland Shire Environment Centre (SSEC) is a totally independent, not-for-profit, non-government, community organisation. We’ve been working with the community since 1991 and have achieved some very significant gains for the environment in that time.
The objects of SSEC are:
1. to act to defend the environment of the Sutherland Shire and associated bio-regions, by supporting members and local community organisations in their efforts to protect and improve their local areas
2. to develop and conduct environmental education initiatives, to encourage behavioural change to achieve a sustainable environment in the Sutherland Shire and its bio-regions.
SSEC is a totally independent, non-government community organisation. It is an incorporated Association guided by a constitution and governed by a Board elected at an Annual General Meeting by members of the Association.
We’re actively involved in a wide range of projects aimed at greening the shire, environmental education, sustainable living and business and protecting against environmental threats. You can see more about these projects here.
Sutherland Shire Environment Centre (SSEC) is a totally independent, not-for-profit, non-government, community organisation. We’ve been working with the community since 1991 and have achieved some very significant gains for the environment in that time.
The objects of SSEC are:
1. to act to defend the environment of the Sutherland Shire and associated bio-regions, by supporting members and local community organisations in their efforts to protect and improve their local areas
2. to develop and conduct environmental education initiatives, to encourage behavioural change to achieve a sustainable environment in the Sutherland Shire and its bio-regions.
SSEC is a totally independent, non-government community organisation. It is an incorporated Association guided by a constitution and governed by a Board elected at an Annual General Meeting by members of the Association.
Managed/contributed to the following campaigns
Type of group
Environment Centre
Primary environmental focus
Conservation & Protection
Geographic sphere or activity
Local
Primary location
Sutherland, New South Wales
Known address
PO Box 589, Sutherland NSW 1499
Website link/s
Founding Year
1991
History of group
Every region in Australia needs protecting by an environment centre. This is especially true for the Sutherland Shire – one of the most remarkable local government regions in Australia. It is home to a host of natural features: the two great bays, Port Hacking and Botany Bay; three of Sydney’s six rivers, four national parks including the oldest in the world; many of Sydney’s best beaches; and the place where Aboriginal and European cultures first met. Aborigines are reported by the First Fleet diarists to have assembled muttering, shouting and making obscene gestures when Phillip’s sailors indiscriminately chopped down trees on Kurnell – that’s the first environmental protest meeting in Australian history! And we have over 100 urban bushland areas in the Shire to protect, along with 50 per cent of Sydney mangroves and 90 percent of its saltmarshes.
The Centre was born following a Writing for the Environment course, held in Sutherland in 1991 by local historian, publisher and environmental activist, Bob Walshe. A few inspired participants banded together, intending to put the lessons from the course to good use.
After the launch of the Environment Centre on the 22 July, 1991 it wasn’t long before its founding members were hard at work on their first campaign. It was to be the first of many successes. All through the intervening years, Sutherland Shire Environment Centre has been in the forefront of many campaigns on behalf of environmental protection in and around Sutherland Shire:
the expansion of Lucas Heights Waste Depot as Sydney’s ‘Megatip’, 1992;
an expansion of Helensburgh that would have polluted the Royal National Park, 1994;
the Metromix proposal to mine huge quantities of off-shore sand near Botany Bay, Cronulla and Marley, 1994;
siting of Sydney’s second airport at Holsworthy, 1997;
a co-generation plant at Kurnell that would have damaged Botany Bay, 1998;
construction of the M6 which would split the Shire in two
development of 3000 homes in West Menai
More recently our campaigns have focused on raising awareness of the risks of climate change, threats to our water supply from coal mining, helping Sutherland Shire stay plastic free, and our other environmental education programs.
The Centre was born following a Writing for the Environment course, held in Sutherland in 1991 by local historian, publisher and environmental activist, Bob Walshe. A few inspired participants banded together, intending to put the lessons from the course to good use.
After the launch of the Environment Centre on the 22 July, 1991 it wasn’t long before its founding members were hard at work on their first campaign. It was to be the first of many successes. All through the intervening years, Sutherland Shire Environment Centre has been in the forefront of many campaigns on behalf of environmental protection in and around Sutherland Shire:
the expansion of Lucas Heights Waste Depot as Sydney’s ‘Megatip’, 1992;
an expansion of Helensburgh that would have polluted the Royal National Park, 1994;
the Metromix proposal to mine huge quantities of off-shore sand near Botany Bay, Cronulla and Marley, 1994;
siting of Sydney’s second airport at Holsworthy, 1997;
a co-generation plant at Kurnell that would have damaged Botany Bay, 1998;
construction of the M6 which would split the Shire in two
development of 3000 homes in West Menai
More recently our campaigns have focused on raising awareness of the risks of climate change, threats to our water supply from coal mining, helping Sutherland Shire stay plastic free, and our other environmental education programs.
