Earthcare has been invited to submit plans for self guided trails in the City of Port Phillip. There is to be approximately 5 trails with different cultural themes, such as indigenous flora and fauna, koori culture etc…. On each of the 5 walks will have seats made from 300-900 year old eucalyptus recycled from Melbourne wharf, which will be decorated by local artists on the chosen theme. The aim of the project is to highlight change and diversity since federation and will be accompanied by a book and a web site.

West Beach St. Kilda

Spring is here, so too are the weeds. West beach is an oasis of indigenous saltmarsh right on your doorstep. This high maintenance area is cared for by the City of Port Phillip and volunteers from Earthcare St Kilda.

Saturday 20^th November

Little blue butterflies and skippers are frequently seen among the vegetation, occasionally a bird of prey visits the site, the knobby club rush will be coming into bloom and the beaded glasswort should be turning red.

Eildon rd/Acland st church playground site in conjunction with Excell looks already to be going ahead. Eastbridge park also looks a promising site, but more new sites are called for.

An area of key importance to the City of Port Phillip, the Corroboree tree area is in need of attention

Work needs to be done on the Canterbury road plantings as some of the five themes did not flourish. The Fraser Street end was reported is in particular need of reworking as it appeared over grown.

It was suggested that an indigenous vegetation kit should be developed to aid and encourage successful plantings thereby boosting habitat of local species. These kits could take the form of step by step instructions including plant lists or it could contain some actual plants as well as the instructions

Excell as you are probably aware has won the City of Port Phillip parks and gardens contract. Two Excell employees attended the October meeting to explain what they saw as Excells’ role in Port Phillip. It is primary a maintenance contract, particularly on what is considered significant site like the Botanic gardens. It is a 5yr contract that started in Port Phillip in September. Australian Land Management is developing a draft

management plan, in which we will be able to contribute before finalization.

Westgate park

Community Days

Sunday

21^st November &

The Third Sunday of each month

December 19

January 16

February 20

Ph Naomie 9387 9041

21^st November, Westgate Park Weeding, 11am

21^st November, WebbDock meeting, Ecocentre (the "house") 3pm

21^st November, Alma Park Community day with Skinc plant stall

25^th November, Annual Dinner, Ecocentre (the’house’) 7.30pm Rsvp Alison Rowe by the 20/11

27&28 November, plant sale, S.K.I.N.C. 525 Williamstown Rd, Port Melbourne

2nd of December, Friends of Sandringham Railway Reserve, 7pm The EcoCentre (The House)

5th December, Webb Dock meeting, Contact Rosey 9527 4356 for time and place

5^th December, Water Testing, Cowderoy Creek, West Beach St Kilda, 2pm

6^th December, Ecocentre open day

9^th December, Ecocentre meeting, 7pm

Friends of Sandringham Railway Line, by Richard Gray

The Sandringham Rail line contains some of the last surviving patches of pre-European vegetation in the southeast inner urban area. The idea of creating an indigenous green corridor, linking the Yarra and the Bay, first came from Rob Scott, who secured funding from The National Heritage Trust to plant bird habitat trees along the Sandringham rail line.

This project has so far involved Earthcare; the Soka Gakkai International Buddhist community in Elsternwick, Grade 4 from St Michael’s Grammar School, Naturelinks Inc, the City of Port Phillip, the City of Stonnington, as well as several local interested people.

Earthcare has planted several hundred tubes on the embankment adjacent to the park in William St, East St Kilda, near the Grosvenor St Bridge. Nearly all have survived and are thriving. Much thanks to all concerned. We at Naturelinks will continue to manage the weed situation through the summer.

However the funds were not huge and further funding to continue the project will be needed. This enterprise needs more than just money to be successful. It needs a longer-term commitment from interested locals to monitor and maintain these sites and the many remnant sites along the line in general. We have funds set aside next autumn’s planting so put that in your long-term diaries.

Consequently, I propose to invite all interested parties to a meeting to discuss the project’s aims and directions and explore the possibility of a Friends group to facilitate funding applications and management of the project, with Earthcare acting as an umbrella organization.

The meeting will be held at the Ecocentre at 7pm on Thursday 2^nd of December. Hope to see you there. For Further information please call Richard Gray on 9534 8875

WEBB DOCK SALTMARSH SAVED!

Last year the Friends of Webb Dock Wetlands (FOWDW) ran a very quick campaign against the dredging of the saltmarsh at Webb Dock. In July this year we finally received the Minister’s decision which was a whopping great endorsement of our campaign. The report said that the saltmarsh should be retained and that the City of Port Phillip should oversee a committee of management for the area.

We had two major limitations to our campaign. The first was the short time frame - the group was formed in October and the panel who would make recommendations to the Minister sat in December. The second was the lack of public profile of the site. Our lightning-pace campaign therefore had three main objectives. The first was to raise public awareness of the site. The second was to get the support of other groups. The third was to present a positive alternative and convincing vision for the area to the panel.

OUR CAMPAIGN

1. Raising public awareness.

We sent media releases to everyone possible. Success with 2 local papers, spots on 3LO and 3CR radio and Channel 31TV.

We had stalls at the CERES Kingfisher festival, the City of Port Phillip Garden Festival and street stalls in Acland St and an ongoing display at St Kilda Indigenous Nursery

Lots of people went forth with petitions and information and generally spread the word.

2. Gaining general support

The low public profile of the site meant that we could not rely on a huge community response to the campaign. To compensate for this we contacted every politician and every environmental group, community group or historical society that we thought would be interested. We asked each of these if they would write a letter supporting the campaign to the Minister for Planning and if we could list them as official supporters of the campaign. In this way we could legitimately say that we had a broad base of people concerned as well as being able to quote people with a bit more political clout than we had!

3. The panel hearing and draft management plan

We presented an option that preserved the saltmarsh without being too disadvantageous to the Melbourne Ports Corporation. To this end we drafted a management plan which provided for the preservation of the saltmarsh, by linking the saltmarsh, Westgate Park and Sandridge Beach. We tried to answer any questions that the panel might have such as who would manage the area, where would funding come from, how would port security be affected etc.

We learned much from this campaign that is transferable to future actions:

• It’s never too late to get involved – but the earlier the better.

• Talk to lots of people, especially to the people on the inside – we got really helpful advice from the Department of Infrastructure and the various environmental agencies
• Present a positive vision with the details on how to achieve it. Try to create a win-win situation.

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

We are now meeting fortnightly, with our first priority to upgrade our management plan so we can present a more detailed vision. Next meeting is Sunday 21^st November, 3 pm.

For further meeting times or any other information contact Rosey 9527 4356.

The Ecocentre former known as the ‘house’, is a focal point for initiating, promoting, and managing community-based environmental projects within the City of Port Phillip. The EcoCentre’s new home, in the St Kilda Botanical Gardens ‘house’ (corner of Blessington & Herbert Streets, St Kilda) supports three like-minded but independent groups, namely Earthcare, Surfrider Foundation Melbourne, and Parks Community Association, as well as several smaller ones. We also welcome any similar groups to share the facilities.

We have a web site featuring an environmental ‘what’s on’, education programs working with local high schools. The house itself is being transformed into a model sustainable house.

The EcoCentre provides an environmental reference library, computers, photocopier, and printer to enable groups or individuals to research and present their environment initiatives. Enviro seminars on global topics such as ‘greenhouse’ are envisaged. Your feedback as to what topics would be of most interest is sought.

Further Tests Sunday December 5th at 2pm

Earthcare St kilda would like to thank all the contributors to the newsletter for this year. This issue was compiled with the help of: Neil Blake, Richard Gray, Rosemary Haas, Zoe Hogg, Russell Jenkins, Alison Strachan.

TIMELINES

Have you been recording the natural events in your habitat?

A cat was attacked by a raven and possums have been fighting in Ripponlea. In St Kilda harbour two rakali were seen swimming towards each other and then fighting in the water. Zoe