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Merri Creek Conservation Corridor
Vision for the corridor along the Merri Creek on Melbourne's northern fringe
Our aim is to protect and enhance ecological flows and the unique biological and geological landscapes, significant Indigenous cultural and other historical features of the Merri Creek Corridor for the enjoyment and benefit of current and future generations. The Corridor would extend from Wallan to Fawkner, covering approximately 2,500 hectares, and would include places with extraordinary diversity and conservation value.
Our vision is for a contiguous reservation along the Merri Creek Valley managed either primarily for conservation (reserves) or private and public land that has committed land use and management that is compatible with conservation aims. (For instance, a number of landholders of the Merriang Landcare Group in the Merri Creek Corridor north of Bald Hill currently combine broadscale grazing with sympathetic biodiversity conservation measures.) See K on the map.
The Corridor has a width of at least 200 metres along the Merri Creek but also aims to protect open space corridors through important remnant vegetation away from the creek that is essential for ecological flows such as animal migration and movement, genetic flows of plant life and water movement.
Problems that need to be addressed
1. Lack of provision for a habitat corridor between significant habitat 'nodes.'
Existing and projected development is steadily removing the open landscapes that link the Cooper St Grassland to larger grassland remnants such as Craigieburn Grassland.. Even paddocks can provide an approximation of the structure of native grassland that permits a proportion of the indigenous fauna to survive or move through them. A wide corridor containing open space habitat (more than creek and verges) is needed to allow Grassland fauna species to move freely. Without an adequate habitat corridor the grassland reserves are doomed to become a series of islands, subject to progressive extinction of animal and plant species. Climate change presents a particular challenge to isolated reserves. See A on the map.
2. Ongoing and predicted destruction of areas possessing unique biological and historical values along the Merri Creek valley by industry, resource extraction, housing and associated infrastructure. In particular:
Wetlands/swamps, such as at O'Herns Rd is unprotected and threatened by industrial development. See B on the map.
Native grasslands, such as Bald Hill Grasslands, recognised as being of National Significance for its biological value is to be destroyed by quarrying. See C on map.
Old growth Redgums, such as those up to 600 years old in the upper Edgars Creek area that are currently threatened by urban developments. Many such developments retain some of the old trees but so alter the surrounding landscape that the trees are unable to reproduce. See D on map.
Escarpments. Along the western bank of the Merri Creek in the Craigieburn area, earthworks for new industrial developments frequently bury the boulder-dominated Escarpment Shrublands along the Merri Creek, important refuge areas for flora and fauna, replacing them with barren weedscapes. See E on map.
3. Inadequate recognition within existing planning processes of the natural and cultural values and of measures needed for their continued existence.
Proposed Development along the Edgars Creek in Epping North illustrates several instances where biological and cultural landscape features including ancient Redgum Woodlands and drystone walls dating from the 1850s are destroyed or retained in small reserves. These small reserves show inadequate buffers, linkages and provision for the ecological processes that the continued existence of the features rely upon, dooming them to gradual destruction. See F on map.
4. Ongoing deterioration of biological and other values under existing management regimes, such as' lifestyle blocks,' urban parkland golf courses and other amenity type planting, railway and roadside reserve management, and conservation reserves.
'Lifestyle blocks' result in a loss of the low intensity land management that has retained grassland and woodland habitat within the catchment. These developments spread urban-type environmental problems such as feral animals and infrastructure developments into rural landscapes. Examples of this type of development can be seen in the Kalkallo and Beveridge area. See G on map.
Manicured urban parkland, golf courses and other amenity type planting are associated with altered drainage patterns, fertiliser run-off, environmental weeds in landscaping and pesticide use. These pressures are especially likely to damage small, narrow remnants, eg. Malcolm Creek See H on map.
Railway and roadside reserve management: Lack of weed management or inappropriate weed management techniques threaten biologically diverse remnants such as the Beveridge Wallan Railway line. Unsecured access points leaves fragile habitats such as these open to damage from off-road vehicles. See I on map.
Conservation reserves: Lack of resources to manage conservation reserves, in particular for weed control, feral animal control and visitor management threatens the future of these areas. See J on map.
Permanent protection of this linked series of sites would be a real conservation achievement. But the opportunity must be grasped now, before the various threatening processes degrade, fragment and destroy these irreplaceable natural and cultural heritage assets.
For more detailed information, see our 'Proposal for a Merri State Park,' that was prepared in 2000, along with the Victorian National Parks Association.
Click here for a map of the proposed park
