A dense sea of pitched roofs, domestic gardens and clipped lawns abruptly gives way to an abundant wetland. A pair of magpie geese perch on a log, insects hum, pelicans cruise overhead.
At Waterways, a 48-hectare restoration project located along Mordialloc Creek in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, a suburban housing estate coexists alongside an expanse of lakes, bushland and riparian habitat for indigenous fauna and flora.
If we’re to successfully integrate biodiversity into the fabric of our contemporary lives, there needs to be a dramatic shift in the standard typologies of urban and rural landscapes and management systems. Waterways offers an exemplary future model that demonstrates the possibilities of adequately funded and well-managed projects.
With climate change and loss of biodiversity understood as the most pressing challenges of the decade, culturally embedded systems of management need to be established across regional
