Thank you for your interest in starting a Friends of the Earth group. The information provided below is aimed at giving you a basic overview of the requirements and to provide assistance in starting a FoE group. If we can help in anyway, please get in touch.

A FoE group is an autonomous group that is affiliated with the FoE Australia federation. We welcome new members to the network. To start a group, contact the national liaison officers (NLOs) for FoE Australia, Natalie Lowrey in Katoomba <natalie.lowrey@foe.org.au> or  Cam Walker in Melbourne on (03) 9419 8700.

The NLOs may be able to help with ideas or contacts for others in your area. You will need to organise a meeting of people who may be interested in getting a FoE group going. Then, once you have a sense of how you want to structure yourselves, what campaigns you will work on, etc, we suggest that you launch the group at a public meeting. Your group needs to develop a constitution, and write a brief summary of who you are. These two documents are then circulated to the existing members of FoEA for consideration (and hopefully approval).

Groups need to be open to all people who are in agreement with the constitution of your group. Pre existing groups can also affiliate with the network. A "new group" kit is available from the above address.

Member groups need to meet certain criteria:

• Independence from political parties and economic interests;
  
• It should have an open and democratic structure;
  
• It should have a policy and practice of actively encouraging equal representation and participation of women and men;
  
• It should actively seek to encourage indigenous people and people from non-English speaking backgrounds to be active in the group;
  
• It should be addressing environmental issues in their social, political and human rights context;
  
• It should have a strong interest in actively cooperating with other FoEA member groups.
• FoE groups should be membership-based.

FoEA currently has 12 members