FYI

 

 

 

 

 

 

THIS IS A PRIVATE REPORT

 

Council  staff: At some stage please ensure VEAC members see the impressive and beautiful maps drafted by the MMBW in the early 1930s showing the Board’s vision for Melbourne and its parks! The report focussed on the open-space opportunities afforded by Melbourne’s network of urban streams and floodplains. This is still a great way to approach urban land-use. *

 

Two vignettes:

 

·         Fairmount Park in Philadelphia covers +3700 hectares (+9600 acres), one-tenth of the city

 

·         In NZ, Auckland Regional Council (like a CMA but with social, planning, park management and transport portfolios too) buys farmland on the open market to create new parks, combining revegetation, open grassland sometimes remaining under grazing/cropping regimes, and other uses such as camping, farm-zoos, wildlife habitat, sports facilities and perhaps commercial activities – there are strong links to Maori and migrant communities

 

This is my simple proposition: if Melbourne is to have five million people by say 2040, we should buy 2-3000 hectares of farmland in our hinterland over the next twenty years – farm properties that can be converted to urban parks for passive and active recreation. I think Gellibrand Hill is a good example of this process.

 

Ideally properties purchased should be alongside streams, and incorporate Koorie and interesting geological features, remnants of indigenous vegetation , especially basaltic escarpments, and historic buildings. They ought to be near railway stations if possible.

 

Moreover, instead of residential and mindless commercial redevelopments on former industrial land, we should be looking at some of these areas for the same purposes!

 

Efforts should be made to links these parks with cycle, walking and equestrian tracks to the central city.

 

There is a special case to be made for any public land carrying basaltic escarpment vegetation. These slopes can rarely be used for purposes other than conservation – grazing is difficult, weeds prevail and engineering is challenging. But this land often carries excellent, even beguiling, remnants of indigenous vegetation. We should be looking at a broad program here of reservation and restoration to create new networks across greater Melbourne combining conservation and passive recreation.

 

Go to Sydenham Park, west of Keilor, to see how this land-class can be rejuvenated.

 

Despite everything we hear about global crises, we are a wealthy community and should be able to do this easily, shrewdly looking for supplementary philanthropic and community support.

 

I must end with my usual rail against Parks Victoria: it does great work but it doesn’t manage volunteers well, and doesn’t look far enough outside its boundaries. That’s been my experience, anyway.

 

* See the late 1986 cover of Trees and Natural Resources (the NRCL magazine)

 

Rob Youl

 

LCC staff member 1977-81

 

 

THIS IS A PRIVATE REPORT

 

CarbonSMART Project Officer

Landcare CarbonSMART

Level Nine

Farrer House

24-28 Collins Street

Melbourne Vic 3000

 

PLEASE NOTE NEW TELEPHONE NUMBERS:

 

T    03 9650 3555

F    03 9662 4466 (will be 9650 1444)

M   0407 362 840

 

rob.youl@...

www.carbonsmart.com.au