Bunurong Land Council partnerships
There has been lots of productive planning, research and field activity between Melbourne Water and Bunurong Land Council during 2023-24 with the Bunurong Water Officer. This collaboration has involved Environmental Water Planners in Service Futures and at the delivery end, the Environmental Water Resources delivery team.
This has involved regular meetings and check-ins every few months. This involves regular catch ups to discuss environmental water planning and policy, flows studies, Sustainable Water Strategy actions, water recovery and Integrated Water Management.
There has also been some practical discussions about the Werribee River system, and in particular the Lower Werribee Diversion Weir Fishway onsite meeting. This meeting was on Country with Adam Atkinson to talk about the concept of putting a fishway at the diversion weir, to provide fish movement up within Werribee River.
Bunurong Land Council have also been involved in science and research during the year, including two Tupong monitoring sessions on the Werribee River. This was out in a specialist boat with scientists from the Arthur Rylah Institute collecting logged Tupong records. The purpose of this project was to track Tupong movement down the Werribee after an environmental water release below the diversion weir. This is an important species for Bunurong and also an important method to improve their knowledge of culturally important species.
The Melbourne Water Waterways and wetlands research manager continues to work with Bunurong seagrass restoration in Western Port with support from Deakin University. There has also been eDNA training and surveys with in and surrounding Port Phillip Bay.
Late in the year, following on from an enlightening presentation on Values and methodologies for cultural mapping on Bunurong Country during National Reconciliation Week at Water Edge in collaboration with South East Water, the Bunurong Land Council put together an innovative project to record cultural information in the Western Port Bay landscape which will be continued into 2024-25. This will provide an array of benefits as Bunurong increase their participation in land and waterway management with Melbourne Water.
Melbourne Water and Bunurong Land Council continued its partnership through the ‘Indigenous Ramsar Ranger’ program, helping to protect the culturally and ecologically significant Western Port Ramsar wetland. 2023/24 marked the fourth year of this important partnership, with representatives from Bunurong Land Council assisting with the delivery of flora and fauna monitoring on French Island and Millowl (Phillip Island). Other highlights included helping to restore mangrove forests by planting thousands of seedlings along the coastal foreshores at Hastings and Grantville.