There’s something that happens at The Finders Keepers that’s hard to explain until you’ve experienced it.

You arrive expecting to browse. You leave having discovered something, a maker, a story, or a small, beautiful object that somehow feels like it was made just for you. You carry it home, and it means something.

That feeling, of things made with intention, of craft that connects you to a person and a place, is exactly why our partnership with not-for-profit Bush Heritage Australia felt so right.

You might have noticed that when you are checking out your tickets, or when you visit us at the market next weekend, they are there, quietly asking for a donation. Here is why we love their work: 

What Bush Heritage Does 

Bush Heritage Australia has spent 35 years doing something extraordinary: buying land to protect it. Not to develop it, not to farm it, but to let it be wild. To help it heal. To keep it intact for every generation that comes after us.

They now help protect over 25 million hectares of Australian land. To put that in perspective, that’s an area larger than the United Kingdom.

But the numbers only tell part of the story.

The real story is in the places. A reserve in Queensland that is twice the size of Brisbane, home to the only known population of the Fat-tailed false antechinus (Pseudantechinus macdonnellensis) in the state. A remote reserve in outback Queensland where ecologists have spent more than a decade quietly studying and protecting the Night Parrot, one of Australia’s most elusive birds. A remarkable spring system so biologically rich it ranks as one of the third most diverse on the planet, sheltering fish species found absolutely nowhere else on Earth.

These are living, irreplaceable ecosystems, and without Bush Heritage, many of them simply wouldn’t have anyone looking after them.

A Piece of the Puzzle, Now Secured

We’ve got some good news to share.

In the mid-west of Western Australia, there is a place called Wanarra. A woodland of critically endangered eucalypts, Salmon Gum, Wandoo and York Gum, that represent some of the last standing native vegetation in a region where more than 90 per cent of it has been cleared.

Wanarra sits within the Southwest Australia Biodiversity Hotspot, one of the most floristically diverse regions on Earth. It is also a living cultural landscape for the Badimia People and the Widi Mob of the Yamatji Nation, who have cared for this Country for generations beyond counting.

Bush Heritage has been working to secure Wanarra as the final piece connecting one million hectares of protected land, an unbroken corridor double the size of the Grand Canyon.

And they’ve done it. The Wanarra campaign has officially reached its $4.6 million goal. This landscape of wildflowers and salt lakes, woodlands and granite outcrops, is now protected for good, a huge step toward Bush Heritage’s goal of doubling the land it manages by 2030.

More Than Buying Land

For Busy Heritage, purchasing the land is just the beginning.

Their field staff don’t visit these reserves; they live on them. Year-round, these are the people walking the country, monitoring the species, managing fire, restoring habitat, and doing the patient, unglamorous, essential work of caring for land at scale.

At Tarcutta Hills Reserve in regional New South Wales, years of revegetation work have expanded habitat for woodland birds, and the proof arrives every year when the critically endangered Swift Parrot returns to forage on the flowering eucalypts during migration. 

And woven through all of it is a deep commitment to working alongside the Traditional Custodians of each landscape. As Bush Heritage’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships Manager, Sheree Strauss puts it:

“It’s important to protect the ecological values, but just as important are the cultural heritage values.”

Why This Connection Works

At The Finders Keepers, we’ve always believed that conscious commerce can be a force for good. The makers at our market build things with care, things that last, and that hold the intention to push back against the throwaway.

Bush Heritage operates from the same conviction. That what’s worth protecting is worth protecting properly, with expertise, presence and a long view.

How You Can Help – At the Melbourne Market and Beyond

When you check out your tickets to The Finders Keepers Melbourne Design Market, you’ll find a spot on our ticketing platform to opt in to donating to Bush Heritage. The Bush Heritage team will be at the market all weekend and would love to meet you. They’ll have copies of their quarterly magazine, Bushtracks, origami parrots, and plenty of stories to share.

They’ll also have socks! $5 bamboo koala socks – warm, sustainable, and a small act that directly funds vital conservation work. Their goal is to sell 10,000 pairs. Help them get there.

If you want to go further:

• Follow them on social media and share their stories with your community
• Subscribe to Bushtracks magazine or their monthly newsletter, Bush Banter
• Listen to their award-winning podcast, Big Sky Country
• Donate – even a small amount of funds, real, on-ground action
• Volunteer – on a reserve or from your desk at home

As Bush Heritage says, all it costs to start is a follow, a like, a click, or an email registration. Every single one helps get Wanarra, and the next Wanarra, across the line.

We’re proud to have Bush Heritage Australia as our charity partner for The Finders Keepers Melbourne AW26. Visit them at the Royal Exhibition Building from 10-12 July and say g’day.