Since our inception, Griffith has embraced and protected its natural environment
Griffith University has a long-standing commitment to environmental sustainability and is responsible for the conservation management of almost 180 hectares of forest.
Our campuses are home to some of Australia’s most unique native plant and animal species. We play a key role in maintaining, extending and protecting existing ecosystems and their biodiversity, including both plants and animals, especially ecosystems under threat in our local region of South East Queensland.
Griffith is dedicated to safeguarding biodiversity in areas influenced by our operations, guided by our Environmental Sustainability Policy.
There are around 200 hectares of forest on our Gold Coast campus and at Nathan and Mount Gravatt campuses, we’re custodians of 175 hectares of Toohey Forest.
We ensure informed decisions and actions that align with the latest conservation knowledge by actively monitoring and assessing biodiversity through surveys and assessments.
Our approach follows the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Biodiversity Offsets Policy, focusing on restoration, regeneration, and sustainability.
Griffith's Sustainability Strategy provides an overview of our future initiatives that will contribute to a future that benefits all.
Sustainable Development Goals
Griffith University is aligned with the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and committed to creating sustainable cities and communities and tackling global challenges around climate action, life below water, and life on land.
Griffith biodiversity
Griffith University is committed to the sustainable use, conservation and restoration of the lands upon which our campuses sit. To support this, we have policies and plans to ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems associated with the university, including of our native – wild land - forests.
Our Environmental Sustainability Policy expresses Griffith University’s commitment to mitigating the impact of our operations on the climate and the natural environment by adopting economic, social, and environmentally responsible practices aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, while also complying with all relevant legislation informed by contemporary best practice, First Peoples knowledges and practices, and latest scientific knowledge to prevent and minimise harm to the natural environment. This policy also seeks describes the development of our action plans to achieve net zero by 2029 within the defined emissions boundary, avoid and reduce waste on campus, protect and enhance biodiversity, including offsetting unavoidable impacts, and prevent pollution of waterways and improve catchment health.
Our Biodiversity and Conversation Plan sets out the key principles to ensure our biodiversity is protected and regenerated even as the University grows. It details the outcomes towards which we are working and the range of actions we will implement to achieve these outcomes. Importantly, this plan also provides a summary of the unique biodiversity across our three largest, enduring campuses – Gold Coast, Logan and Nathan – and identifies measures for reducing the impact of alien species on campus.
Our Landscape Management Plan (2022–2025) outlines a comprehensive approach to managing the landscapes of the University’s three main campuses in alignment with the Biodiversity Conservation Plan. This plan focuses on maintaining and enhancing the campus's ecological integrity, emphasising the 'ACT, LEARN, ENGAGE' framework documented in the Biodiversity Conservation Plan. It is a strategic framework designed to preserve and enhance the ecological health of Griffith University's mains campuses, ensuring they remain vibrant, sustainable, and educational environments. For each of these campuses, the key components of the plans are:
- Biodiversity zones (including native forests, landscaped gardens, and lawns)
- Weed control (including the removal of alien (invasive) – species)
- Fauna habitat and pest management (including of alien – non-native – species)
- Tree management
- Pollution and erosion control
- Community engagement and education
Effective weed management is a critical component of maintaining and enhancing the ecological integrity of Griffith University campuses. Alien plant species, hereafter called weeds, can threaten native biodiversity, disrupt ecosystem functions, and diminish the aesthetic and environmental value of the forest and campus green spaces. As a place of learning and innovation, the university is committed to fostering a sustainable environment that supports native flora and fauna and provides a healthy, engaging space for students, staff, and visitors.
This Weed Management Plan outlines the strategies and actions we take at Griffith to control and reduce the impact of alien species across the university’s campuses natural and landscaped areas.
This plan is underpinned by our Environmental Sustainability Policy, which articulates our commitment to protecting and enhancing biodiversity of our campuses
Acknowledgement of Country
Griffith University campuses sit on the lands of the Yugarabul, Yuggera, Jagera, Turrbal, Yugambeh and Kombumerri peoples. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ unique and complex relationship with and understanding and ongoing stewardship of these lands as Traditional Owners.
Our Biodiversity Conservation Plan recognises and values the role of First People's knowledge for the conservation of biodiversity. Through collaboration with staff, students and community members we are committed to deep, ongoing and increasing engagement with First Peoples' cultures and diverse knowledge systems to inform our stewardship responsibilities.
Maintaining and extending biodiversity
At Griffith, we not only maintain and extend the biodiversity of our campuses, but we also work locally, regionally, nationally and internationally with industry, community, and businesses to maintain and extend off-campus ecosystems and their biodiversity. This includes both plants and animals, on land and in water, with a specific focus on ecosystems under threat.
Griffith supports rich and healthy biodiversity through an array of approaches that reduce threatening processes impacting our wild species such as greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and land-clearing. All of this while using our campuses for world-class education that has sustainability at its core.
Griffith University has installed more than 70 nest boxes on the Nathan Campus, including some for the endangered powerful owl. The University also continues to protect important vegetation, including tree species known as habitat and food for the endangered koalas that live on the Campus.
Researchers at Griffith are collaborating locally and internationally to maintain, protect and extend primary forests in both terrestrial and coastal ecosystems. These efforts include identifying and assessing carbon stocks, evaluating ecosystem services, understanding their role in climate change mitigation, and developing policies for their protection and restoration.
- Evaluating forest landscape management for ecosystem integrity
- Critical reforms for effective and timely action to prevent irreparable harm to Earth's climate and biodiversity: A call for a Joint CBD & UNFCCC SBSTA Work Plan on Climate and Biodiversity Action
- Conservation of the critically endangered Box-gum grassy woodlands with ecosystem accounting in Australia
- The role of natural forests, including primary forests and intact forest landscapes, in climate mitigation and limiting global warming to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 °C
In our GLOW Mangroves project, Griffith University academics work with the World Wildlife Fund (US Oceans team) to ensure climate smart restoration and protection of mangroves locally and globally. Commencing in 2022, and still ongoing, the project maintains, conserves, restores and extends coastal mangrove habitats.
Part One of the project integrates climate models with models of mangrove forest change to predict locations globally that are most likely to be affected by climate impacts to identify where additional adaptation measures and further conservation work will be needed.
Part Two includes local-scale action across the globe to implement climate smart conservation plans for mangroves. This includes adapting restoration techniques so that restored habitat is more resilient to climate change.
The Australian Rivers Institute addresses the need to improve the success and sustainability of restoration and rehabilitation efforts for shared land and water systems, maintain, conserving, and restoring ecosystems and their biodiversity. Many of our catchments and aquatic ecosystems – and the services they provide – are degraded. Millions of dollars are spent on their repair, often with limited success. At the Institute, we focus on understanding the impacts of stressors on all aspects of catchments and associated aquatic ecosystems, and developing tools to optimise investment in on-ground actions.
Based on catchment-scale research, a new data-driven investment decision-making tool has been developed. The research, led by Griffith University’s Australian Rivers Institute from 2019-2023, integrates flood mapping data with environmental and economic data, so different investment and management scenarios can be explored from a catchment-scale perspective, through an easy-to-use visualisation tool. The tool highlights the economic benefits to downstream industries that rely on healthy catchments, to help prioritise industry investment in green infrastructure solutions, while also providing landowners with long-term maintenance and opportunity costs of changing land use practices. This initiative is used to guide water security and implementation of nature-based solutions to reduce flooding and improve water quality, and thus forms part of the Institute’s work to directly maintain and conserve vulnerable ecosystems and their biodiversity, including plants and animals.
The Australian Rivers Institute also joined forces with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) in a collaborative effort to foster the creation of a robust framework for response assessment for sustainable management in the Philippines. This framework, developed between 2021 and 2022, and implemented in 2023 and 2024, is geared towards enhancing our comprehension of the efficacy of strategies aimed at mitigating and adapting to land, soil, and water.
In collaboration with the Earth Commission, Griffith is dedicated to the rigorous scientific delineation and quantification of a safe and equitable corridor for the well-being of both humanity and the planet. Fundamental to all life on Earth are essential elements such as clean air and water, biodiversity, thriving oceans, and a stable climate. Through the concerted efforts of our working groups, the Earth Commission scrutinises strategies for safeguarding our planet in a manner that ensures not only environmental sustainability, but also upholds human well-being within the bounds of ecological limits while promoting conservation and the extension of biodiversity across the globe.
The Australian Rivers Institute also joined forces with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) in a collaborative effort to foster the creation of a robust framework for response assessment for sustainable management in the Philippines. This framework, developed between 2021 and 2022, and implemented in 2023 and 2024, is geared towards enhancing our comprehension of the efficacy of strategies aimed at mitigating and adapting to land, soil, and water degradation.
Biodiversity education
Griffith University programs and supports a number of educational programmes on ecosystems for local and national communities
Rare and threatened species
In 2023, academics from the School of Environment and Science at Griffith, produced Birds of the Nathan Campus and Vertebrates of Gold Coast Campus. These books were created to provide readily available information on the bird and vertebrate species recorded on our campuses for education, teaching, and conservation purposes. In each book, there is a photograph of the species, icons displaying endemicity and threat status, along with threatening processes. A brief description of the habitat and ecology of each species is also provided to ensure that staff, students and community members who are accessing our native forests can support Griffith’s efforts to maintain and extend existing ecosystems and their biodiversity, including threatened animal species.
Birds of the Nathan Campus Vertebrates of Gold Coast Campus
The biodiversity of Griffith’s Gold Coast campus also continues to bloom, with a survey revealing an increase in wildlife species on site to more than 130 different types. From frogs and flying foxes, to owls and cute koalas, researchers have now identified 11 new species living at the campus. Griffith’s Gold Coast campus forest areas cover 28 ha and are home to more than 370 native species of flora.
Gold Coast campus's flourishing ecosystem
Water on campus
Griffith adopts a water-sensitive urban design approach to campus operations. This ensures we reduce our consumption through efficient water use, which has a range of health, environmental, social, and economic benefits. Water sensitive design provides cooler campuses, reduces flood risk, improves air quality, allows staff, students and local community members to connect with nature, and prevents polluted water entering the water system, including pollution caused by accidents and incidents at the University.
Research
Griffith leads key environmental and conservation research centres and partners in research and practice to advance bushfire recovery take climate action, promote planetary health, and maintain, extend and protect the biodiversity of rivers & oceans, locally, nationally, regionally and internationally.
Koalas find a home at Toohey Forest
Toohey Forest, located adjacent to Griffith University's Nathan and Mount Gravatt campuses, is an ecological island in suburbia. It's home to a variety of native wildlife, including owls, bearded dragons and a small population of koalas.
Griffith welcomes our communities
Griffith University campuses are home to plenty of natural heritage, green and open spaces, and native vegetation, providing a peaceful and picturesque environment for staff, students, and our local community members to enjoy. At Griffith, we provide free public access to all open and green spaces across all of our campuses year round.
Our campuses
Griffith welcomes all visitors to come and explore our beautiful campuses. We have plenty of beautiful green and open spaces, including recreation trails for walking and cycling and native forests.
Nathan and Mount Gravatt
Griffith University’s Nathan and Mount Gravatt campuses are adjacent to Toohey Forest and are home to species of rare flora and fauna.
Gold Coast
On the Gold Coast campus, there are more than 250 native plants growing in the remnant Blackbutt Forest and landscaped gardens. The campus showcases how local natives can be used in a range of garden styles.
Gold Coast
On the Gold Coast campus, there are more than 250 native plants growing in the remnant Blackbutt Forest and landscaped gardens. The campus showcases how local natives can be used in a range of garden styles.
Logan
A Logan City Council partnership included a major restoration of Slacks Creek, which runs through our Logan campus. A key project was establishing an arboretum on the campus, which features more than 7,000 native trees.
Contact Griffith Sustainability
Griffith Sustainability Room 0.08, Building N23, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Road, Nathan QLD, 4111