Canon provides gear for green projects

September 24, 2009: Canon Australia continues to develop interesting community support programs, this month announcing the winners of the 2009 Canon Australia Environmental Grants.

This follows the Creative for a Cause initiative, where the company sought out smaller, less well-resourced charities via a photographic competition open to their supporters, with a donation of $50,000 as the incentive.

The environmental grants are now in their fourth year and assist groups working on important environmental projects all over Australia, providing them with their choice of Canon products to the value of $5000. Submissions are judged on the environmental merits of their projects and the importance of digital imaging technology in achieving their objectives.

A wide range of Canon equipment will be provided, from digital still cameras, digital video cameras, network video cameras and digital SLRs to interchangeable camera lenses, binoculars and underwater housings.

The 2009 Canon Australia Environmental Grant winners are:

SEQ Healthy Waterways Partnership (QLD): Water by Design (pictured above right) is a capacity building program that supports the uptake of Water Sensitive Urban Design in South East Queensland. The Partnership’s Vision is that by 2026, the waterways and catchments will be healthy ecosystems supporting the livelihoods and lifestyles of people in South East Queensland, and will be managed through collaboration between community, government and industry. Water by Design will use the grant to create a series of educational videos to accompany the recently published Construction and Establishment Guidelines for Bioretention Systems. The aim of the video series is to create an online training resource for civil contractors and site superintendents, which provides an introduction to the construction of bioretention systems, and promotes the uptake of water sensitive urban design principles.

Spot a Shark (NSW): Spot a Shark want to learn as much as possible about the critically endangered Grey Nurse Shark by firstly identifying and tracking Grey Nurse Shark migratory patterns and then educating the public to assist with the conservation of the species and prevent extinction. Spot a Shark will benefit from utilising high quality photographic equipment to conduct non-invasive Photo ID research on the critically endangered Grey Nurse Shark. They believe that higher quality photographs will lead to an increase in the number of Grey Nurse Shark matches and thereby provide their researchers with vital migratory pattern information.

Centre for Sustainability Leadership (VIC): The Centre for Sustainability Leadership will use Canon equipment to film case studies of sustainability leaders across Australia and overseas. These case studies will be used as part of the curriculum for its Online Future Sustainability Leaders (OFSL) program, which empowers young people to make their communities more sustainable. Filming case studies will show participants how sustainability leaders have achieved success and also teach participants the values and strategies employed to achieve this success.

Wetland Habitat Trust Paiwalla (SA): Paiwalla is one of the few wetlands in South Australia that has been allocated water under the Federal Government’s environmental water allocation for 2008/09. The wetlands are the home for 158 species of birds, 9 species of frogs, 3 species of turtles and 10 species of bats. The grant will be used to set up two network cameras with infra-red night motion capacity at strategic positions of the wetland to record night movements of feral animals and provide estimations of the population.

Baldivis Children’s Forest Inc. (WA): This project was initiated by children from Baldivis Primary School who wanted to make a positive difference in their rapidly changing world, as surrounding farmland gave way to urban housing. This passion by new generations of children continues, and demonstrates that ‘kids can make a difference’. The grant will be used to purchase a digital projector and digital recorder which will enable the group to record activities and make presentations. Every year the group conducts a bird survey in partnership with Birds Australia. The data from these surveys provides an indication of bushland health and the efficacy of their rehabilitation work. Canon binoculars will enable them to carry out more surveys, involve children and the community and vastly improve their ability to monitor installed nesting boxes.

‘Here at Canon Australia, we pride ourselves on being an environmentally-conscious organisation, considering the environment throughout all facets of our business, whether in product development or everyday processes,’ said Kenji Kobayashi, managing director, Canon Australia. ‘We are therefore excited to be able to offer other like-minded organisations the high quality digital equipment they need to fulfill their work. Photographing and documenting is a key part of environmental work, placing Canon in the perfect position to help.’