1 July 2025
Waring (Wombat) season in the Kulin calendar is the longest of all the seasons, running from April until July. It is marked by cooler temperatures, increased rain, and shorter days. Fungi and wombats can be seen, as well as one of Australia’s largest moths – the rain moth.
Photo credit: Arthur Chapman Creative Commons
Starting on 6 September (World Rivers Day) and running to 28 September, this year's festival stretches from the Yarra Ranges to Westgate Park and culminates with a celebration at Federation Square. BBBU and Melbourne Water are major co-sponsors, and we're integrating stormwater education and community engagement activities to support the Healthy Waterways Strategy.
After last year's huge success, 2025 promises to be our biggest yet! Join us for:
There's something for everyone – dive in!!
The Riverfest schedule of events is coming soon. In the meantime keep your eye on the Yarra Riverkeeper website.
Wattle Day planting Photo by David Redfern
More than 180 people registered for an online information session on the Birrarung planning scheme amendment (VC281), hosted by the Municipal Association of Victoria on 6 May.
The session focused on the implications of the changes for land use planners and project proponents, with the Birrarung Council, Department of Transport and Planning (DTP), Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Action, and Melbourne Water all presenting at the session.
A recording of the session is available online. Work to develop guidance material for planners to complement the scheme amendment will shortly commence under the leadership of DTP.
On 22 May, the Greening the Birrarung Project working group gathered at Collingwood Children’s Farm for its second in-person workshop. The setting provided an opportunity to hear about great collaborative work between the Farm, Wurundjeri Narrap rangers and Melbourne Water, and to experience the new “pause space” created to allow visitors to spend quiet time with the river.
The working group’s focus for the day was exploring biodiversity maps of the Birrarung to identify opportunities for collaboration to enhance riparian habitat. The group identified an extensive list of projects to align collective work for the benefit of Birrarung.
Greening the Birrarung is one of the transformative projects under the BBBU plan. The project brings together government organisations responsible for caring for Birrarung to work to increase habitat connectivity and resilience, ensure Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung cultural values and knowledge guide restoration efforts, and identify opportunities for whole-of-river net gain.
With a background in natural resources and biodiversity, Kym's passion lies in sustainable land management and habitat restoration. She's worked across partnership projects with private landholders to protect their remnant vegetation and encourage native planting on their land, weed control, and community education and capacity building programs supporting biodiversity.
While leading the Greening the Birrarung project, Kym has been most amazed at the incredible job everyone is doing of improving local habitat. "There is such a lot of great work being done along the Birrarung. The challenging part is making others aware of it."
Kym knows the river doesn’t care what uniform you wear, it cares about how you can get the best outcome.
"I love seeing our working group drop the logos and the silos and stretch a little further to get the best outcome for Birrarung. There are many collaborative projects going on right now between organisations, environmental volunteers and public. This is as heartening as it is normal."
Kym hopes the collaboration can achieve more shared projects with more partners involved. "The better the relationships between the people who care for Birrarung, the easier it is to get bushland restored, banks stabilised, nest boxes installed and plants in the ground."
New flood gates and regulators will restore 60 hectares of natural floodplain where the Birrarung/Yarra meets Olinda Creek.
With the Yering Billabongs project infrastructure works complete, the transformation is already underway. Five local primary schools have planted 3000 native plants, while large-scale revegetation continues along Olinda Creek.
The project will manage stormwater naturally while creating habitat for wildlife and new recreation opportunities. With Green Links funding secured, arrap will continue restoration work for the next two years, bringing this critical floodplain back to life for generations to enjoy.
Three short videos on the project – Introduction, Planting the Seed School Plantings and Cultural Values Assessment – are available on Yarra Ranges Council’s website.
Melbourne Water respectfully acknowledges the Bunurong, Gunaikurnai,
Taungurung, Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung peoples as the Traditional
Owners and Custodians of the land and water on which we rely and operate.
We
pay our deepest respects to their Elders - past, present and emerging.
