When Ann and Bruce McGregor moved to Brunswick in 1967, the Merri Creek was in bad condition. They worked with many community groups through their roles in the Merri Creek Coordinating Committe and the Friends of Merri Creek to bring the creek back to life. They were also integral in setting up the Merri Creek Management Committee.
Edited transcript of the interview with Ann and Bruce McGregor.
BM: When we came to Brunswick it didn’t take long to realise that the only real natural area was the creeks on either side of Brunswick. Obviously Merri goes right up through Coburg and Fawkner so the newer city of Moreland it’s the boundary, the eastern boundary. But the creek was threatened by a freeway.
AM: The original route for that would have crossed the creek six times back and forth because the creek bends in that area. So it was just a straight line coming down the valley and we didn’t like that idea very much.
BM: The freeway campaign was a long one and it’s like a lot of big projects, government type projects, so they can be promoted and if there’s community objection then it all goes quiet for a while and then a few years later it rears its ugly head. So that’s that was really about, maintaining community pressure and lobbying the government.
AM: So we fought quite a big battle and a big community campaign. Letter box drops and Town Hall meetings and all sorts of stuff for some years about that freeway. We went to the Federal Court over it and eventually got the freeway, we didn’t stop the freeway, but moved it sideways so it only crosses the creek once. So that’s a partial victory, quite a decent victory, but that in that process lots and lots of people joined the Friends.
BM: So in 1976 the creek was severely degraded. There’s a long history of industry along the creek way back in early period of settlement. There were abattoirs there were other offensive industries so the creek had been abused.
AM: So we joined with other people who are interested in restoring the creek to a bushland corridor and fighting off the threats like the freeway that was planned along the creek valley. From there some a number of local groups along the Merri got together with councils, particularly Fitzroy council which hosted the first meeting of councils and community groups interested in restoring the Merri Creek.
BM: Working with the other groups tree planting was the most important thing we felt to start with and so we worked out what the local indigenous plants were and wrote a planting guide for that and then the different groups would be running their own paintings. But planting is very problematic because that’s they’re disturbed sites along the creek some of them have been filled the creek is very fertile and so you’re trying to plant something and then you’ve got all this weed out of control weed growth and council staff were unfamiliar with how to manage that properly. So after a few years it became really obvious you can have a big planting and lots of people but actually the survival of the plants was very low. So we reset the whole thing was reset and it was felt that the best thing to do was to encourage passive recreation that was the end point the real point about tree planting was to make it nice for people as a park but actually you needed people there and get them to appreciate it. So the focus moved to establishing the Merri shared pathway.
AM: State government funding for Victoria’s 150th anniversary paid for a design to be done by consultants for the pathway, actually locating the route which is not as simple as it sounds, and the specifications for building the Then each council was responsible for building their section and they all did slightly differently. Luckily they all join up, which was one of the purposes of, having a single plan. But they certainly built two different standards. And we’re still sorting that one out. But that was a really important catalyst I think for bringing the local community down. Local residents could come get access to the creek and see its potential and start enjoying it, and that increased the support for further revegetation and parkland development. We eventually decided that you needed skilled people doing the job as a job, not just relying on volunteers to do this revegetation work. It could it take forever you’d never get there so part of the activity was to encourage councils to put money into what became the Merri Creek Management Committee and employee staff who do the revegetation, but also actors advocates and a central hub for information about the creek, educate the community about the values and how to look after the creek.
I’ve been talking to a few people who knew the creek before 1970, just to get their perspectives and descriptions of what it was like, and the interesting thing is that earlier in the 20th century adults didn’t seem to go to the creek at all much, it was just a wilderness there was nothing for them there. But kids loved to go and play there if they could get away from their parents and they’d really enjoy, you know a real adventure play. We’ve always been conscious of the need not to neaten up the place too. It’s really great to see Bush kinder’s happening along various parts of the creek now. The kindergartens taking the kids regularly to play in the mud, whatever the weather, in the trees with sticks and stones and that’s a really good development. But it still should be an adventure playground for kids. But it’s now bringing a lot of adults down to enjoy it too, so that’s part of the whole transformation. To enjoy and learn about nature and get involved in planting and getting your hands dirty and seeing things grow.
BM: There’s about six different migration routes of birds that use the Merri Creek. You’ve got some who live here, but there’s [also] other birds who come from Queensland to nest, there’s birds that come here in winter from Tasmania. There’s other birds that go into the mountains in summer and come back down onto the plains. And then there’s birds that live inland and when there’s a big drought they come to the wetter areas to live. All of these migration patterns [have] happen[ed] in the last five years. We see the birds coming and going, so having a habitat for them is really, really important. Otherwise that’s it there’s nowhere to go when things are tough.
When I got to the creek I feel really happy. I mean, it’s great to see the transformation so that you know the effort [has] definitely been worth it.
Image credit: Jessica Ferrari/Memento Media
About the ReCollection project.
As part of the 2017 Melbourne Fringe Festival, Memento Media partnered with Moreland City Council to present ReCollection at the Coburg Carnivale. ReCollection is about celebrating, sharing and capturing the memories of Moreland’s places, history and faces. The ReCollection exhibit showcased short documentaries and printed historical material which helped attendees take a trip down memory lane. During the Carnivale, many locals generously shared their stories about life in Moreland in our specially built ReCollection Recorder.