Engage the Merri Creek community in natural resource management, increasing awareness, participation and volunteering
Merri Creek Management Committee (MCMC) along with its partners has long worked to engage the catchment community in natural resource management, increasing awareness, participation and volunteering.
Future challenges include increasing engagement with communities in the upper Merri particularly in the Shire of Mitchell and the City of Hume. Work will include planting and weeding days, fauna surveys, nestbox monitoring, publishing articles in a range of media, school indigenous gardens design and education, partnering with the traditional owners, a range of citizen science programs including Waterwatch (water testing, habitat assessments), Waterbug Blitz (waterbug populations and species diversity), LitterWatch Victoria (prevalence and location of litter in waterways), Frog Census, and the Great Australian Platypus Search.
Additional work will involve establishing a working group to produce a strategy for MCMC’s education and engagement, developing appropriate materials that communicate MCMC’s profile and capacity in education and engagement, and convening a biennial forum of stakeholders to focus on education and engagement innovations. We are also working with landowners, hosting the Upper Merri Landcare Facilitator.
Themes and Local Areas
| Primary Theme: | Communities |
| Other Themes: | Wetlands, Wetlands, Native Vegetation, Native Animals, Traditional Owners and Aboriginal Victorians |
| Primary Local Area: | Urban Melbourne |
| Other Local Areas: | Macedon Ranges, Hume, Mitchell & Whittlesea |
| Project location: | Merri Creek and its tributaries |
| Scale of the project: | Landscape |
| New or continuing work: | Continuing/Building on previous work |
Project partners
| Lead organisation: | Merri Creek Management Committee |
| Key partners: | Member Councils (Cities of Yarra, Darebin, Moreland, Hume and Whittlesea and the Mitchell Shire), Melbourne Water, Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), a wide range of community groups and schools, tertiary instututions, Enviro eDNA, Odonata, local businesses etc. |
| Registered Aboriginal Party/s relevant to the project or its area: | Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation |
Investment opportunities
| Opportunities for investors within this project start from: | $$ (Tens of thousands of dollars) |
| Estimated scale of investment for full project implementation: | $$$ (Hundreds of thousands of dollars) |
| Estimated timeframe for full project implementation: | 10+ years |
Contribution toward targets
| Primary Regional Catchment Strategy target: | Target 14.3 (Community Participation) – In 2019-20 MCMC held 153 engagement events, with 3322 participants, but we hope to double that by 2028. Target 14.2 (Volunteering) – In 2019-20 MCMC engaged 402 volunteers (this number includes repeat volunteers), undertaking 800 volunteer hours of work. We hope to double that too by 2028. |
| Relevant Biodiversity 2037 goal: | Support people to take action for nature |
| Relevant National Landcare Program priority: | – |
