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Landcare commenced as a grassroots movement in Victoria, in the 1980s. In 1990, it grew into an Australia-wide movement when a national approach, authored by representatives from the ACF and NFF was agreed to by the Prime Minister, launched the Decade of Landcare and allocated funds in the national budget. In 2020, Landcare is part of everyday vernacular both in the city and in the country.

Citizen Science has rapidly grown from small groups of enthusiastic volunteers doing science-type projects with schools, universities and researchers into a movement collecting huge amounts of data for governments, universities and scientific foundations to use to frame further research and management related to sustainable management of our natural resources.

The objective of this paper is to compare the two approaches to natural resource management using the Brisbane City Council’s Two Million Trees (2MT) project initiated in 2009. Both programs will be critically analysed and using data from the 2 Million Trees Program and extensive experience in landcare since 1990 when lead author started as a landcare coordinator.

Key Findings:

• Involvement of volunteers is essential to both programs but one is from the ground up while the other is usually top down.
• Both involve experts but in different ways
• Management and motivation of volunteers to meet their needs is critical to achieving goals
• Both contribute to natural resource conservation and management outcomes but in different ways.

Conclusions:

Volunteers in both movements need continuing motivation, good group management to achieve objectives and the input of experts to achieve on-the-ground outcomes. Both can work side-by-side in the community or separately. However, there are differences between the two approaches that are unique.