President's AGM report 2024

Kororoit Creek plantings. Photo Nick Williams

On weekends like many men my age I transform into a mamil – a middle aged man in lycra. I then jump on a bike that maybe the environmentally conscious version of a mid-life crisis sports car and start pedalling. While I may be bit of a confronting sight it does allow me to explore a lot of Melbourne.

The mate I ride with insists on routes that include hills in Melbourne’s northeast ’s but my route choices are much flatter and inevitably include the many bike tracks along Melbourne creeks, rivers and through parks. As a consequence, over the past year or two we have explored most of trails along the Yarra, Plenty and Maribyrnong Rivers and the Merri, Darebin, Moonee Ponds, Stony, Mullum Mullum, Gardiners and Kororoit Creeks and more

Like the Merri Creek many of these waterways were once neglected, treated as drains and the community turned its back on them. However, they are being restored and the quality of the revegetation is generally very good. Much of Darebin, Kororoit, Scotchmans and Dampier Creeks in particular have excellent revegetation. My assessment is based on a complex vegetation structure where the ground storey, shrub layer and overstorey trees (where present) is dominated by native species. Our scientific research tells us that this is also very important for fauna biodiversity, as native plants support a greater abundance and diversity of native invertebrates which leads to more individuals and species of amphibians, reptiles, birds and microbats higher up the food chain.

So if we want lots of native animals we need all vegetation layers to be predominantly native.

Merri Creek is rightly held up as an exemplar of how the community can protect and restore waterways and we can be proud of our revegetation efforts. However, from what I’ve seen on my weekend rides I think the state of the revegetation along the Merri is considerably below what we now see elsewhere. There are large sections of the lower Merri where almost no weed control and revegetation has taken place – Northcote Gorge between High Street and Lower Heidelberg Rd for example. Other areas have a good overstorey of Eucalypts and tall shrubs but the groundstorey is totally exotic dominated by Wandering Trad, Kikuyu, Panic Veldt Grass and other nasties. There are only a few areas of the lower Merri where restoration has progressed to a point where there is a good quality, naturally regenerating native groundstorey – around Rushall Station, sections parts of Merri Park, Strettle Wetland and Egan Reserve

There are lots of reasons for this:

The Northcote Gorge is hard to access and requires specialist skills

Compared to many other creeks we were starting off a lower base with a radically altered creek valley that has been straightened, engineered into a trapezoid shape and filled with construction rubble that can be difficult to grow anything but weeds.

It is also partly the result of the timing of the revegetation. Much of the revegetation along the lower Merri occurred in the 1990s and 2000s when the focus was on overstorey and shrubs only due to lack of availability of ground storey plants

However, I also think that there are actions FOMC can take to address this situation and things we can do differently to improve the quality and extent of revegetation works along the lower Merri.

1. While we can and will lobby for more funding from local councils they are constrained by rate capping and have many other demands. Growth of council parkland maintenance budgets to complement grants obtained from other sources may be the approach rather than funding new areas.
2. Better relations and visibility within Melbourne Water can give the Merri access to a very large funding pool for capital works as evidenced by recent projects along the Moonee Ponds Creek. Melbourne Water rejoining MCMC should help with this aspect.
3. Should we be seeking corporate sponsorship for restoration works.  Friends of Kororoit Creek have received funds from Ford and Toyota for revegetation projects. Who are the major industries we could approach in the Merri Catchment – VISY, Austral Bricks, Stocklands and other urban developers?
4. Not rely on MCMC to do everything – write more grants ourselves. 
5. Increase community awareness of weeds and ability to identify and remove them. That way they can pull some out on every walk.
6. Perhaps we need to be more adventurous in the type of projects we undertake. Do different types of activities from planting and hand weeding.  Weeding walks and woody weed control works along the creek – there is a lot of good you can do with a hand saw, cordless drill and a herbicide dabber bottle.