Wilderhoods empowers residents to work together to retrofit their own neighbourhoods, creating networks of urban habitat across existing public and private greenspaces, to meet needs of both people and wildlife in a changing climate.

The Wilderhoods project was initiated in 2022 by Cassia Read and Ada Nano with funding from the Adapt Loddon Mallee program to run a pilot workshop series in the West End neighbourhood of Castlemaine, providing knowledge & tools for community co-design of urban habitat. The West End Wilderhooders continue to meet regularly to create grassland gardens for pollinators and a creek-to-creek corridor for the Superb Fairy-wren.  

In 2023 Wilderhoods was funded by WWF-Australia to continue to design and test our co-design approach in a second pilot in the South Side neighourhood of Castlemaine. Neighbours continue to meet to create a network of refuges for the  Superb Fairy-wren and to green, cool and beautify their dusty naturestrips.