Description:

Fosterbox is a conservation tool kit designed and made by local creatives for young urban dwellers. Many conservation-focused activities, such as planting and bird feeding, are tailored to empower us to reconnect with our native species, environment, and ourselves in moments of despair. Further resources and techniques incrementally inform and guide throughout an experience that encourages action for our climate. The main objective of the kit is to re-energise, connect, motivate and prepare rangatahi (young people) for the more significant steps required to combat declining biodiversity and climate change.

The foundation of this project began with an analysis of conservation in О̄tepoti (Dunedin) and around Aotearoa. This journey allowed me to understand the broader social and environmental context and interrogate the benefits of conservation. This understanding led me to conclude that conservation is climate action, conservation is excellent for your mental health, and conservation can help us navigate our more complex social challenges, such as decolonisation. Discovering this was exciting and motivating, and it prompted me to want to share and integrate these insights in the outcome.

This project aimed to create an inclusive and supportive device for rangatahi, particularly our rangatahi that experience 'climate despair'. Climate despair describes immense feelings of depression or anxiety about the state and future of our climate. These feelings are increasingly common in our rangatahi and can be completely debilitating. We [rangatahi] have repeatedly proven we want action and need to do something about the state of our climate. Still, with problems so big and beyond our grasp, the pressure put on us as consumers, and leaders that don't feel the same urgency, it seems impossible to know what to do. From my research, I've understood that action can mean many different things and can be small. Small actions might not be the radical measures we need to transform our planet, but these actions are progress and should be celebrated. The most important thing is being motivated and feeling prepared and energised for when we need to take significant action.

My exploration into conservation provided much hope for using conservation as a tool for combatting climate despair. I discovered, however, that there were quite a few barriers for young people to get involved in conservation efforts, particularly in an urban context. This opened the opportunity to make conservation even more accessible in urban centres. Thus came Fosterbox.

The various tools inside Fosterbox are examples and ideas of the possibilities the kit can contain. The kit can be redesigned for or added to a local context, and ideas from local creatives and conservation groups can develop the content (from the graphics to the branding, artworks, stories and crafted goods). This design solely represents an idea of a kit that can encourage conservation efforts and connections, enable climate action and help combat climate despair. The profits from the kit's sales will go to local conservation groups.