VEFN Awards
Members and friends were delighted to be acknowledged for their environmental work with an award for Connecting Habitats from the Victorian Environmental Friends Network (VEFN). The VEFN is the organisation which advocates for Victorian friends and environmental Groups.
The award is particularly satisfying for the KooyongKoot Alliance (KKA) as it reflects exactly what the Alliance has set out to achieve – connecting not only communities, but also habitats in the Kooyongkoot/ Gardiners Creek Catchment.
Now comprising over 20 Friends Groups, the KKA has well and truly established itself as a group that not only represents Friends groups in the catchment, but as a strong voice for the creek and its flora and fauna.
Urban Guerrillas, members of the KKA, picked up a ‘Highly Commended’ gong in the Outstanding Friends Group Award. A wonderful achievement for this young and vibrant group.
The remaining Friends and Advisory Groups quietly go about their amazing work in the catchment, most happy to fly under the radar!!
Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation
The KKA was also recently granted $50,000 from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation to help support our catchment keeper, Graham Ross, continue the group’s work in 2024, as well as providing supplementary funds to support current and future projects while working towards a securing a strategic plan for the catchment.
State Gov’t Green Links program
Another feather in its cap is that its application to the Victorian Government’s Green Links program was successful. A revegetation grant, for $94,000 with Urban Guerrillas, Whitehorse City Council, Deakin University and a number of local Friends and community groups eager to get involved, will revegetate a portion of the Gardiners Creek Reserve with special emphasis of providing safe habitat for Tawny Frogmouths, Blue tongue lizards and Rakali (native water rat) – as well as trying to encourage our small birds back to the reserve. Work is expected to start in April with replacement fencing being installed as part of the Council’s ongoing program for the Reserve.
KKA members, Blackburn Lake Sanctuary and Bungalook Indigenous Nursery were also successful with their application for an important project to care for Blackburn Lake, restoring and revegetating the sanctuary main inlet as part of the wetland regeneration.
New Friends
In other exciting news, two new Friends Groups have been established in the KooyongKoot/Gardiners Creek Catchment: AC/BC (Ashburton Creek Biodiversity Crew) and Friends of Wurundjeri Walk. Both are doing wonderful work to improve biodiversity in our suburbs.