North of the Ring Road - The Importance of the Upper Merri

It’s a common idea among volunteers and conservationists who work along the Merri Creek - imagine if we could do more north of the Ring Road. But why? What’s actually up there, what’s so important about it, and what needs to be done?

What is the Upper Merri?

The Merri Creek runs from Heathcote Junction in the north, all the way to where it intersects with the Yarra at Dights Falls. This is roughly a 60 kilometre stretch, yet the majority of the Friends’ activities, the majority of plantings, community groups, and the like, are focused on the areas south of the M80 Ring Road - less than a third of the Creek’s length. Far less attention, at least from a volunteer and member perspective, is focused on north of the Ring Road. So what’s up there? 

galada tamboore

Listed as an Aboriginal Cultural Heritage place due to its twelve known archaeological sites, remnant grasslands that have survived colonialism to date, and significant flora and fauna. galada tamboore - the name means ‘stream waterhole’ - is a biosite of State Significance, and has a spectacular gorge.

bababi marning

The nationally significant Golden Sun Moth, Growling Grass Frog, and Striped Legless Lizard, among others, call the site home. This is an area of Plains Grassland, as well as sections of Woolly Tea-tree riparian scrub, among others. A 1990 survey listed 157 native vascular plant species for the grassland, including two plant species of national significance.

galgi ngarrk

At 400 hectares, this is a much larger grasslands site than the above two, spanning sections of Epping and Wollert and taking us all the way up to Craigieburn. The creek corridor links bababi marning in the south with areas such as Bald Hill to the north, including for the Common Wombat and Black Wallaby. Cam Beardsell, who prepared a number of surveys in the 1990s, described the galgi ngarrk Grassland and O’Herns Road Wetland as

“the most extensive, intact, rare, diverse and significant volcanic plains rocky grassland, stream and wetland flora and fauna assemblage in Greater Melbourne. No biological reserve containing both of these systems is in existence”.

While the grasslands are now in a Nature Conservation Reserve, the wetland was degraded (drained) by construction of a gas pipeline several decades ago.

Craigieburn and Beyond

These three key sites take us to Craigieburn, but as the crow flies, there are still 25 kilometres between there and the Merri Creek headwaters. This is the edge of Melbourne - and yet, an edge that keeps going north, past Craigieburn to far-off places like Kalkallo, Beveridge, and Wallan. Large tracts of these areas are currently used as farmland, just now in the process of being turned into suburbs, and as such the areas of parkland are nowhere near clearly as defined. That said, the map of the planned marram baba Regional Parklands may give you some idea, and this covers a number of biodiversity conservation areas identified back in 2013. There is also burrung buluk, formerly known as Hanna Swamp. Half of it contains the nationally endangered Seasonal Herbaceous Wetland community, the other half was cleared relatively recently but has great potential to be restored. There is potentially many more examples of this community and other areas of biodiversity significance in the Wallan area because it was not included in the 2010 Melbourne Strategic Assessment. It was part of 6000 ha added as “logical inclusions’ to growth areas when Melbourne’s urban growth boundary was extended by the Baillieu liberal government. Consequently, any actions that have a significant environmental impact in these areas will require separate Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act referral, assessment and approval.

Why Are These Important?

You’ve probably picked up that the Upper Merri has a multitude of important sites and areas from all sorts of environmental and cultural perspectives. And a number of them should be preserved for that alone. But beyond that, as the “old” saying goes, there’s more to life than Brunswick! North of the Ring Road has over 200,000 people living in suburbs either adjoining the Merri Creek, or where the Merri Creek would be one of their closest open spaces / water ways, as of the most recent census. Based on the suburbs planned, that number is set to jump substantially. Backyards are getting smaller, and people need access to quality green spaces - with the added bonus that today’s green spaces will inspire tomorrow’s connections to those spaces, so that more people will be keen to protect them in the future.
At the same time, it adds to Melbourne’s fabric. More places, just up the highway or train line or bike path, that you can explore on the weekend. More places you can take your friends, either from across Melbourne or from out of town. More places to connect with nature.
They’re also critical from a water management perspective. More intense rainfall predicted under climate change scenarios combined with much greater areas of impervious surface due to urbanisation has the potential to increase flooding. The wetlands of the upper Merri historically stored a lot of water and acted as a buffer. Reinstating them is a natural way to slow that flow.

So What Needs to Happen?

To protect the upper reaches of Merri Creek so that it provides a natural haven for biodiversity and future communities some of the actions the friends are calling for are:

• The Victorian government to honour its election commitment to declare and fully fund the wallan wallan Regional Park using boundaries proposed by the DELWP Suburban Parks Program 2022 feasibility study. This will protect most of the wetlands in the Wallan area.
• The Victorian government to honour its election commitment to introduce planning controls on the Merri Creek (and other urban waterways) to protect it from inappropriate development for local wildlife, families and communities
• A massive acceleration in the implementation of water sensitive urban design initiatives by councils along the creek to protect it from the negative effects of stormwater.
• Construction of the missing links and upgrades to the Merri Shared Trail as outlined in the Northern Trails 2022 strategy.
• Adequate funding to effectively manage existing conservation reserves along Merri Creek, including for ecological burning, control of weeds and pest animals at galgi ngarrk/ Craigieburn Grasslands, bababi marning/ Cooper St Grasslands, and Merri Creek Park.
• Rapid transfer of the conservation reserves legislated in the Melbourne Strategic Assessment to public ownership. We’ve been waiting 13 years!

We also aim to make members more aware of the special places of the upper Merri Creek and the threats to it. To this end FoMC will be running another tour of the area this Spring. Keep an eye on the website and our socials for details.

Note: Wurundjeri Woi wurrung have requested Woi wurrung place names be lower case.