Merri Creek Management Committee

MCMC and Collingwood Children’s Farm have partnered to gain a $20,000 Melbourne Water Community Grant to enhance river bank integrity and improve riparian revegetation that was planted in the 1980s. The 2017 project, on the Yarra River at Collingwood Children's Farm, will help to ameliorate impacts of erosion, improve indigenous habitat along the riverbank and reduce sediment and nutrient rich farming runoff into the river. The community of the Abbotsford Convent and Collingwood Children’s Farm precinct were involved in two Community Plantings in 2017: on Sunday 21^st May and on NAIDOC Day Wednesday 6^th July.

If your organisation/group would like to add value to your current works, MCMC may be able to support you in the application and/or delivery of waterway grants. Call Katrina on 9380 8199 to explore the possibilities.

Most of MCMC's on ground work is rehabilitating degraded sites. But what is rehabilitation? Does it differ from revegetation or restoration? Merle & Merri can help you understand these terms.

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During Merri Creek Management Committee’s surveys of Golden Sun Moth in summer 2016/17 we learnt three important things:

• Golden Sun Moths (GSMs) don’t mind how much it rains, as long as the grass is kept short.
• Small reserves make it hard for Golden Sun Moths to avoid predators.
• Golden Sun Moths live on the Great Dividing Range.

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Reservoir's endangered Matted Flax-lilies (Dianella amoena) received a boost through a $20,000 Melbourne Water Community Grant awarded to Merri Creek Management Committee. The 2017 project 'Blue Banded Bees Bridging Brex, Broadhurst and BT Connor' saw three Merri Creek sites in Reservoir planted with dense patches of flowering understorey plants to attract the Flax-lilies' primary pollinator, the Blue Banded Bee. Additional Flax-lilies were planted to augment small isolated populations and to create new pollination 'stepping stone' patches.

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See MCMC's 2015-16 Flora and Fauna Report for a summary of what has been seen along Merri Creek from October 2015 to September 2016.

The Friends of Merri Creek and MCMC held our first Wild Pollinator Count on 13 November, funded by donors to the Help the Blue-banded Bee campaign and the Victorian Government.

MCMC’s Brian Bainbridge pointed out the planting sites in 2017 around Bababi Djinanang in Fawkner, placed a ‘bee hotel’ in the grassland and explained how to do a pollinator count. Participants can now submit their own data to the National Pollinator Count which aims to understand more about the thousands of native pollinator species.
The project’s ‘Blue Banded Bee Band’ gig, supported by high profile local musicians, attracted lots of interest and an article in The Guardian. Read more.