RD Walshe National Writing for the Environment Prize

2026

Sutherland Shire Environment Centre holds an annual, National Writing for the Environment prize in honour of our founder, Bob Walshe.

Writing was a passion and a skill of Bob’s. He taught and inspired many people to write and write and write! And he believed writing was an important tool in the work of building a sustainable world.

Bob was an educator, historian, journalist, and environmentalist. He authored many books on history, English, and writing, and he wrote articles on the environment for many years for the newspaper Shire Life, and for a number of other environmental magazines. Bob produced Australia’s first global warming poster for the Commonwealth Government in the late 1980s.

The origins of our Environment Centre are proudly traced back to writing courses Bob ran in the Sutherland Shire.

Through the RD Walshe National Writing for the Environment Competition, Sutherland Shire Environment Centre continues to value the role and place of the art of writing in bringing about change – in issues of social justice and environment. Writing offers a chance to reflect on these problems and their causes, as well as on the solutions and their causes.

A good piece of writing can shift minds and hearts; it can move hands. The intention of this competition is to attract quality writing that can inspire or inform and incite change.

Competition 2026: Spoken Words Matter

In our work to protect and restore the quality of nature and human interactions, words matter. Written words matter – stories, poems, articles, texts, blogs… All are vital for understanding human impacts on the Earth and critical for inspiring change. Spoken words matter, too. Conversations, interviews, speeches, songs, plays… Bob Walshe was not just an accomplished writer, he was also a wonderful conversationalist. A wonderful speaker. A wonderful interviewee and interviewer. Not sure he was much of a singer.


This year, the RD Walshe Writing for the Environment competition is asking writers to submit scripts of conversations – real or imaginary. Recall one you’ve had or record one you are having now – in real life or quietly in your own mind. Who are you speaking to? What message or inspiration do you want to create? What happens in that conversation? Write a one-act play and tell everyone.

Topic
It’s your conversation! Do the script for a one-act play about any topic related in some way to one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals). Give your play a title.

Sample script

Rescue Mission 2: Higher Ground 
 
Cows, pigs, chickens? 
Check. Lots. 
Salmon, sheep, ducks? 
Check. Lots. 
Cats, dogs, horses? 
Check. Great! What about….gorillas and rhinos? 
Ahhh…not this time. 
What?  
No room. 
Leopards, turtles, orangutan? They are precious and beautiful. 
Hmmm…next time. 
Tigers? 
Nope. 
Porpoises and the blue whale and the tuna? 
Tuna – yes. Yum. 
Lizards and snakes and Black Cockatoos? 
Sorry. 
Bats? 
Can you eat ‘em? 
No. But isn’t this a rescue mission? 
That’s what it’s called. All species of significance. Who’d have thought it? That climate change thing was real. Ice caps gone. Oceans rising. That’s why we’ve called it Higher Ground. Shame we didn’t have more time. Oh well. Let’s keep those pigs and cows and sheep moving. 
What about the elephants? Indian, Asian, Bornean, African? 
How long can they tread water? 
Surely, we have Pandas and Koalas and Kangaroos coming? 
How high can they climb? Stop fussing. The contract says, Significant to Continued Human Existence. We won the contract – the fee was so low, the government couldn’t resist. 
But, but… there are nearly 9million species of animals…and we are rescuing…what? Maybe a dozen different species? 
And humans! Lots of us. Our food is ‘significant’. Right, plants are next.  
Wait! Who arranged the contract? 
Just a few scrawled initials and LNP Inc. Not sure who they are.

Don’t they know everything’s connected? That species survive together not as individuals?
So who made you so clever? 
My two kids in primary school know that. Why doesn’t this NLP or PLN bunch know it? And you…why don’t you know this? You are in charge here? We did have time to stop this. We knew about the rising climate decades ago. Surely, you must know. 
Look, mate. We have a job to do and I’m a doer. I’m no knower. 
You’re damned right there, mate.

Age Categories

There are three age categories:

  1. Under 19
  2. 19-26
  3. Over 50

Criteria

The following criteria apply:

  • This national competition is open to Australian citizens only
  • A script for a short play
  • 1000 words – pieces with more than this number will not be considered
  • Original and on topic (and linked to one or more SDGs)
  • Clear in purpose 
  • Creative and powerful and inspirational – it has an impact on the reader 
  • Craftsmanship as a writer 
  • Amateurs only – this is not a competition for professional writers. 

Prizes

Note: we have reduced the prizes for the 2026 competition.

In the U19 age category, there are three prizes:

  • Winner: $500  
  • Second place: $250 
  • Pat Strong Writing Award: $100

The Sutherland Shire Writers Group will continue to offer a $100 prize to a young and inspiring writer. This is the Pat Strong Writing Award, and the winner will be drawn from the U19 category. Pat was a member of the original writing group that Bob Walshe set up over 50 years ago!

In the 19-26 and Over 50 age categories, there are two prizes:

  • Winner: $500 
  • Runner-up: $250 

Judges

Once again, a variety of judges with experience in writing will help judge the 2024 competition.
Rowan Cahill, a widely-published author and close friend of Bob Walshe’s, has agreed to be an arbiter in situations where it’s difficult to determine winners! And that has happened every year!

ROWAN CAHILL is a graduate of the universities of Sydney, New England, and Wollongong. Prominent in the student, anti-war and political movements of the 1960s and 70s, he was a Conscientious Objector during the Vietnam War. He has variously worked as a farmhand, teacher (in the technical education, secondary school, prison, and university systems), freelance writer, and for the trade union movement as a
publicist, historian, and rank and file activist. Currently an Honorary Fellow at the University of Wollongong, he has published widely in mainstream, trade union, social movement, and academic publications. His most recent books, co-authored with Terry Irving, are Radical Sydney (2010) and The Barber Who Read History (2021). His website is at https://rowancahill.net/

Submissions

Please note that submissions for the 2026 competition closed at midnight on 31 May 2026.

If you have any questions, please contact Phil Smith at rephilled@hotmail.com
We wish you well and look forward to your pieces of writing.


Phil Smith
Alex Talbot

Previous years

The theme for the 2024 competition was Through the Eyes of Nature.

You can read the prize-winning stories from our 2024 writing competition here ➤ https://www.ssec.org.au/writing-for-the-environment-award-2024

The 2023 competition was entitled Future, what Future? and attracted almost 100 entries. It asked writers to put themselves in their fictional future whilst considering the environment and broader sustainability concepts.

You can read the prize-winning stories from our 2023 writing competition here ➤ https://www.ssec.org.au/writing-for-the-environment-award-2023

In 2022 more than 120 people across the three age categories entered the competition.  Writers threw their best ideas and writing skills at the topic, Peace and Sustainability.  

In 2020 the Award attracted over 80 entries. The topic was I am Earth.

  • The inaugural Pat Strong Award – $100 for a junior writer, thanks to the Sutherland Shire Writers Group, was awarded to Charlee Rose Murtough-Coombes with her story, Tired, Tired Earth.

For 2019 the topic was Writing to Change the World. 

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