Wildlife, Waterways & Biolinks

Wildlife. From the easily spotted kangaroos, echidnas and wombats, to the elusive powerful owl and brushtale phascogale, wildlife are some of the great joys of our landscape. But they are under increasing pressure from human activity and development, becoming stuck in pockets or islands of land, unable to travel for the food and water, breeding and habitat they need to thrive.

Waterways. The lifeblood not only of a healthy natural environment, but of a healthy Earth, for all of us - animal, plant and human. Mt Macedon hosts the headwaters of the Maribynong River, Melbourne’s second major river. Four creeks flow down the southern slopes of the mountain, much of them stuck behind fences, choked with weeds and randomly sectioned off. They flow into Riddell’s Creek, which flows into Jackson’s creek. Jacksons Creek flows through Sunbury to join Deep Creek, which starts it’s life on the northern slopes of Mt Macedon

Biolink is a new name for what was often called a ‘wildlife corridor’. Biolink is a term that encompasses the need for connection between areas of remnant bush by more than wildlife - plants and platypus, birds and butterflies, also need a diversity of space. Wildlife corridors or biolinks used to be focussed on roads, but waterways offer a much safer and useful option for creating biolinks between areas, with the added advantage of restoring waterways, which has way too many benefits to list here.

So that’s the golden triangle - wildlife, waterways and bio-linking.

So now to our Project. So far we have done two things:

1. We’ve identified seven segments of creek, that run through private property and need a coordinated and managed approach to bring health back to the water and banks. We want to support landholders in these areas to restore the waterway they have within their custody. We want to connect neighbours along waterways and build creek literacy and a creek loving community.

2. Commission a document that is accessible, inspiring and exciting, that sets out briefly the following:

   • The value of waterways as elements of a healthy landscape

   • The need for and merits of biolinks

   • The role of waterways in acting as biolinks

   • An overview of the major creeks flowing to the south of Mt Macedon, their length, health, dams, water extraction, flora and fauna etc.

   • An overview of the 7 areas we have identified that are bordered or owned by private landowners, where we believe the community can begin to work together to restore stretches of creek.  (ie. 3 on Riddell’s Creek, 2 on Turritable Creek and 1 each on Willimigongon and Railway Creeks)

   • Specific formation about each of the seven areas we’ve identified as having a biolink value with a description, length, basic challenges, number of private land holder directly and indirectly connected to the area, and if possible an overview of any restoration works that have already been undertaken in the identified areas

We expect this document to be finalised towards the end of 2024 and we’ll have a launch in early 2025.