 Welcome everybody, welcome everybody to today's HydroTerror webinar series. Today we're very fortunate to have Andrew Kelly with us. Andrew is the Yarra Keeper and we are going to learn all about the Yarra River and the role of the Yarra River Keeper and its underlying association today. Andrew has been in the role for a long time since 2014 and he's kindly offered to share his reflections on the function of that role and also to give some candid opinions on what's working and not working. So thank you very much for everyone joining us today, we've got a really big audience and that's a great thing. Alright, so just a few formalities. Why do we conduct these webinars? First and foremost, it's about sharing knowledge. So through HydroTerror's business and also through personal relationships like today, we are in contact with various specialists and the doers of the industry and we provide a platform for them to share their knowledge. Secondly, we like to facilitate education so we really do believe in training the industry but also the up and coming players in the industry. And finally, we see ourselves as taking a bit of a leadership role, helping to promote those who are truly making a difference out there. And today is certainly an example of that. So, a bit about our speaker. So I know Andrew, I have known Andrew for a long time through first meeting at Merrick's Beach, where we both share a passion for sailing. He has been in this role as the Yarra Riverkeeper since 2014, which is a great achievement, it's a very long stint. Before he was in that role, he was actually a publisher working in his company called Wild Dog Books. Other passions that Andrew has is he's a very well regarded author of children's books and he's happened to have launched one today. So it's available in all bookshops and it's called the Accidental Penguin Hotel. You can see on the screen here a few of the awards he's won. He won the prestigious George Robertson Award in 2016 and he has a number of other books such as Little Lon, which also has received high accolades. Myself, I'm the founder of Hydra Terror and I'll do my best to steer us through this webinar today. So we've been through the introduction and now we're going to work through really a discussion. It's a bit of a new format for us today. Normally you can't see our heads, so we need to concentrate a bit harder today. But it's really going to be more of a conversation with Andrew. I have a series of slides which we'll use to help frame the discussions as we go through. And then at the end of this in part three, you'll get an opportunity for asking questions. If you want to ask a question, you use the Q&A button. Please don't use the chat part of that. Use the actual Q&A piece and that way we get all your requests in the one list, which is just makes life a bit easier. So welcome Andrew, can you hear me Andrew? Thanks Mitch, yep, clear as a bell. Excellent. All right, well thanks very much for taking part today. It's fantastic. I guess there's a few things we should discuss before we get into the real detail of the day. I thought it would be good if perhaps you could just explain the role of the Yarra River Keeper and the association as I don't think everyone understands the various keepers around the world and that sort of things. Thanks Mitch, yeah, so I'm part, well of course I've stepped down on Tuesday as Yarra River Keeper. So I am gracefully exiting and handing the official hat on to the next person who we get to a point but that's really exciting. I think I've used the phrase it was a doing a marathon at a sprint. So it's nice to take a breath, come down here to Merrick's Beach where I am now and look out over the paddocks and watch the birds and chill out a little bit. But that said, it was a fantastic role and I was so appreciative of the opportunity to fulfill that role. And a Keeper basically is somebody who represents the river, you know, who is the community voice for the river, not the voice of the river perhaps. And I guess I should really begin. And that's an opportunity. I guess the real voice of the river perhaps are the traditional owners of the river. So I guess I'd better pay my respects to them, their elders and to the fantastic job they've done of caring for the river and showing us the way and how to care for the river because that's what keepers do. They care for water bodies basically so they are sound keepers, snow keepers, water keepers, river keepers, creek keepers. And it's essentially a sort of place based role. You're defending your place, you're learning about your place, you're speaking up for it. And one of the early, the first river keepers on the Hudson River in New York and one of the early people as part of that group, Richie was a grave digger and he said, find a place that you love and care for it. So kind of powerful words from a grave digger I think. So I reckon any, have I covered it, Mitch? Yeah, I guess the question would be what drew you to the role. Um, fantastic question. I mean the trigger was really seeing my predecessor Ian Penrose who was the first river keeper in the Good Week in magazine zipping up the river in our old tinny looking very dashing. I was like, wow, you know, that looks fantastic. What a great organization. I should join that. But come to the realization that I'd always been interested in the environment and I thought about, you know, rainforest in Borneo and tundras in the Arctic as places to go and defend. But I realized the only place I was really going to understand in depth was in my own backyard, the river that I'd grown up alongside. So there was just this meeting of what I was thinking about and seeing Ian in the paper. So I rang Ian up, joined the association. He said, come and join the committee. I started the first Twitter account for the association which was a lot of fun fairly early days for Twitter. And that's what happened and it proved to be exactly what I wanted. You know, I've learned so much about the river. I was hoping to do. And it's grown significantly under your guidance. So from one when you joined to six full time people now, which is a phenomenal effort. So the next person that that's being sought to take on your role is what sort of skills are you looking for? Well, I don't want to double guess the committee who would be choosing it. But clearly for us, understanding water policy, river policy, which is a complex mosaic of acts, regulations, initiatives would be really, really useful. I mean, my hope, Richard, is that the next person will take the role the next step. When I started, I was the sort of manager of the association. I was responsible for paying the bills. We now have a fantastic CEO in Korean trigger. And so that in effect frees up the riverkeeper role to be an even more powerful advocate for the river and to master all these complexities of policy. And I think a really important part of that that I've learned is the importance of monitoring like these strategies that people do. They're fabulous often, but if you don't monitor them, if you don't follow up on them, you wasted the paper they printed on. We get to that a little bit later in this presentation. I've sort of framed it a bit around the services that you're a keeper association delivering. But just before we move off the origins of the keeper thing, who decides which rivers need a keeper and, you know, where's that sheet at home? Is it she did home at the sort of national level in Australia? Or is it she did home to some global governance body or she did home to a global governance body. So you apply to the alliance, the waterkeeper alliance in New York. The original there are a number of other waterkeepers in Australia. And Victoria has always been the stronghold for some reason. But there's one starting on the hunter. There's a real renaissance happening. It was about, I guess, 15 years ago. The first waterkeeper movement started in Australia courtesy of some funding from the Maya Foundation. And at one stage we grew to 18 and then we shrank back. But there's real energy now, I think broadly in the community around waterways with fantastic groups like the Friends of the Barwon developing. But there's also renewed energy in the waterkeeper space. And so I've got colleagues on Port Phillip Bay, Neil Blake, and on the Werrivy, John Forester. There's Acacia Rose, who's the Alpine waterkeeper. Rob Cowan, who's the lower snowy waterkeeper. Sue Martin, who's up on the Hunter. So we're a growing organization and that's really exciting growing in Australia, I mean, worldwide. There's about 200, 250 waterkeepers. It's a significant organization. I suppose it's apolitical. So it's got a real strength there. Part of today's presentation, I'm going to roll through some photos. So I better remember to do that, Andrew, if I forget to. So let's check if I have covered this so far. So the vision, I think we've covered what is a keeper, but the vision you're rather Yarra River with tributaries that are healthy, protected and loved. Yes. So that's our vision that the river is healthy, the river is protected, and the river is loved. And I think it is loved in Melbourne. I'll be at sometimes with a sort of slight twitch of the head, because it's so brown. Actually, the brownness isn't anything to do with the number of pathogens in the river. It's to do with the clay and the erosion in the river. And given that we're talking about reflections, one thing is that with that clay particles, which float suspended in the water, you get fantastic, really fantastic reflections on the river. As we can see in this slide, and I think on a few more that have come. Healthy, we want a healthy river. We want a connected river corridor. We want to plant it along the whole length of the river so that species, particularly in climate change, can move up and down. And protected, I think means the sort of work that we're doing with government with the Yarra Protection Act and the Yarra Planning Controls. That's a good answer, Andrew. We'll just see if we've covered off on this section. So how do you tell the story, Andrew, I suppose, in terms of getting it out there? I know you've got your Yarra Atlas and things like that, but what have you found most effective in terms of telling that story? Well, it's creating a coherent story of the beginning and middle and end that you can go into, you know, minister's office offices and tell them why they should protect the river. So, yeah, my background is communications in storytelling, and I'm very pleased that the first picture book I did was Willam, A Birrarang Story, which I wrote with Aunty Joy Murphy, the senior, or Andre Elder, and that's available in bookshops to give a bit of self-promotion here. But it's a fantastic story that traces the river across a day from the headwaters to the bay. So that's the sort of story you've got to tell. You've got to condense it down. And when I was in publishing, selling books, I found that you'd just tell the story of each book and eventually it'd just distill itself down to the crispest few words you needed. And I think that's the challenge of saying, why do we want to protect the river? Well, why do we want to protect the river? If we want a river tomorrow, we'd better protect it today. I think that's a really good point about distilling down to just a few key words because there's so much written about conservation and so much written in policy and strategies and that sort of thing. But I think sometimes the actual why piece of why people do love the river and the community would connect more with that simple message. I mean, I know a lot of people who love the river, but it does get a bit lost, I think, sometimes in the policy side of things. Tell us a bit about advocacy, Andrew. Like, obviously, I think this would be one of the great successes of your period in the role. And just tell us a bit about how you've managed to do that and what do you think some of the big achievements have been in the role around that? Good question, Richard. So really the tone of the organisation was set by Ian Penrose, my predecessor, and Ian used the phrase within the tent. So we tend to be middle of the road, conservative people. When I started in the role, I always wore a suit to meetings and a nice tie. Because we wanted to present ourselves as serious people that you wanted to take seriously. And that was so we're in the tent. But when we're in the tent, we're not trying to let people off the hook easily. We're asking difficult and awkward questions. And we are really asking people to tell their story about the river to justify what they're doing about the river. And that can be very tough. You know, tough questioning. And it's been sometimes it's tough for us to convince government of why we should exist. And they'd really like us sometimes just to spend time on picking up litter on the river rather than giving them a hard time. But in essence, our job as advocates is to give them a bit of a hard time, but also to, I think, really applaud the work, the good work that's done and say that's fantastic and be a positive voice. Because there's plenty of other people leaning on the other end of the scale like developers who are keen to, sorry, I've got an aunt on my computer. I'll just remove him or her. So there's plenty of other people leaning on the other end of the scale and if public servants, people who work for agencies only hear from the developers, they'll lean that way. So it's important that they hear loud and clearly from people like us, not just us, but lots of other people that people want to protect their Yarra, which kind of goes back to your idea of the Yarra getting a bit lost sometimes. Do you think the pendulum is sort of swinging back a bit more in terms of a bit more of a safer the environment when negotiating with developers? Do you think we've sort of got that better over your period? I think looking at this photograph of the city, obviously when we originally laid out the city and set it up, we weren't thinking about the environment too much because there's not any sort of native vegetation or anything there, right? But do you think we've sort of found a good balance now for other areas? We've improved, but we're not there yet. I mean, looking at this photo, if you go, you've got on the left, you've got the ANZ building there, which is right slap bang on top of the river. And it's shading the river and nobody's you see walking along the river on that side. So we're still building these huge buildings that put the North Bank in shadow and there's been various efforts to stop that, including by Melbourne City Council. But they kind of get trumped by the dollars that are involved in development. So these buildings sprout up on the banks of the river and much to the, I think, the long term cost to the community. So if we have a rich, sunny, green river banks, then that will drive a whole lot of economic benefits for the city. But if we crowded in with tall buildings and shadow the river banks, we're losing out. We're losing out in the long term. It's a privatisation of a public space in my opinion. Developers are making short term profits at the expense of the rest of the community. And my feeling with all these developments is you start with a site plan, a landscape plan that pushes the developments a good 30, 40, 50 metres away from the river. So that every time you do a new development, you're creating yet more green space on the river. And, you know, I think developers, I'm not being critical of developers. They're doing what developers do. But we really need to be tough with them as a community and as a government and say no, you know, you can't just make a profit here. You know, it's fabulous that you're putting up a 30 story building, but you're going to be overshadowing the river. So find another solution. It's interesting to hear that, you know, the town planning side of things as a good structure. But in the end, you know, the value of the development, I think Trump's is what was the word you used to it. Because at the end of the day, in the process, is that I mean, is that just because it goes through like VCAT or something like that? Is that where that sort of strategic planning sort of gizumps? Well, VCAT certainly plays a role. I think things get appealed from council to government and government will often sometimes step in with changed plans that go against what the council wishes. But certainly VCAT tends to be always business as usual. And that's my perception of VCAT. There is an innate conservatism in VCAT that means that it's very hard to move the dial forward and for us to develop a modern planning system. And I really think VCAT needs to be willing to invest more in the future by coming up with some more innovative judgments. The moment they don't seem to get the environment is the bottom line. I'd say they don't really seem to understand the environment. There are exceptions, but they don't understand the value of the environment. They see the dollar values that a developer might be waving around to the benefit of the community, not the benefit of VCAT. But they need to see the value in the environment, I think. That's a good point. I think that as we go through these photos, we'll see where, you know, we have done a great job around. Our forefathers have done a great job of setting up other parts of Melbourne, which just look amazing from the Yarra River. But I think it's a really good point you're raising there. With, of course, La Trobe set aside these gardens that we're looking at the moment on either side of the river above Princes Bridge. So that was a brilliant planning decision made in the 1840s. So we do have a tradition, as well as the counterbalancing business as usual, of being bold and innovative to drive green spaces in Melbourne. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I mean, obviously, I do a lot of paddling. This is a group that I paddle with in the morning. And thanks to Charlie for that photo of we called the River Rats. I mean, to me, this highlights, you know, that a lot of people love being out on the water and there's certainly a big rowing community as well. And, you know, during this lockdown period, we've had, I think the Yarra has been a really important. I had a really important role with the community in terms of mental health. You know, you see lots and lots of people riding along it, paddling along it. And I think just about every paddler I know, there's a lot more comfortable about talking about issues when they're near the Yarra River or on the water. So it plays a really important role. So it's interesting to see that one of the key drivers of the association is being a voice for community. Like, for example, the paddling community doesn't really have a home downstream of Dites Falls. It has a group looking for a home. What do you think, for groups like that, what do you think is the best way to get leverage, to get funding, to have people like the paddlers able to have a home on the river? Obviously, you know, this conflicts a bit with your previous statement about 30 metres back from the river because water frontage is important for being able to go paddling. What are your thoughts on that? Who are the stakeholders involved and how would someone get involved with getting a home? I think that's a really good point. My first thought is, you know, there was a kayaking club down in those rowing sheds above Princes Bridge on the South Bank. And I think the rowers were pretty keen about rowing and weren't very keen about kayaking and the kayakers felt the pressure. So, I mean, my feeling is that peppercorn rent is ridiculous and the rowing club should be paying an adequate rent there. And I think there should be a kayaking club there. I think there should be explicit provision for a kayaking club. I struggle a little bit to see the social licence for those rowing clubs to operate there unless they're giving back to the river and to the community. And I don't think they are entirely at the moment. I suspect that a lot of the people in those rowing clubs, given the brands that I see on the outside of them, are very prosperous and wealthy people who don't need a subsidy from the state government to run those rowing sheds. So that's certainly my first port of call. Let's get a decent rent there and let's subsidise a kayaking club then there. And let's find a better way because the rowers tend to be a bit territorial, I think. Not that I've got anything about rowing. It's a beautiful sport. And if you're out on the river at 5am and you see all the boats, it's one of those still glassy mornings and you see all the rows out there, it just looks fantastic. And clearly it's a great sport. But I think it tends to be a sport of the private schools and they can certainly afford to pay an adequate recompense. And then we should perhaps have a more democratic style with the kayakers. What do you think? Richard? I think there's room for us all. I think we should all get a peppercorn rent. And look, I think the rowers have been actually reasonably collaborative to the point of practicality, but in the end it comes down to storage. And honestly, I think the relationship between paddling and rowing has improved a lot over the years. I'm a bit used to them not being on the river during lockdown, as you can see from this photo, pretty well spread out bunch of paddlers. But I think collaboration, but also maybe funding to assist collaboration between these clubs, we're all sharing the river. And I think anyone who's on the river a lot really appreciates it. So everyone has the river's best interests at heart too. There's probably more about looking at a collaborative funding model, looking at how kayaking and that and rowing can coexist in the most efficient way, right? Best bang for dollar. But we need to start that discussion, right? I think it would be nice to know who the discussion needs to be with, whether it's with council or with the clubs themselves or a combination. Certainly something where there's a lot of interest in the paddling community. But that's probably enough about the paddling community. It is a very small part of the overall era community. Let's see one idea, Mitch. Sure. There is a harbor at Burnley where Parks Victoria is. And maybe this is a crazy dream of mine. But I'd love to see Parks Victoria move down to the docklands where they're kind of a bit more central and have a purpose built facility built for them down there by state government. And that would make better use of docklands and give it a kind of a practical heart, if you like. And then we turn that quarry, which is quite spectacular to be honest, into a public space which could include kayaking clubs. And then we lift the bike track up and hang it from the freeway so that you have clear access in and out. And that could be a kayaking, a flatwater kayaking hub then. I think that that sounds like a great idea. I think there's probably a need for a master plan really isn't there about, you know, the various stakeholders who use the river for recreational purposes, getting an optimum outcome for all, and getting it costed. But definitely worth doing is there's more and more people using the river. I might add my son's a very keen rower. I'm not really having a go at rollers. No, I'm not getting that. One thing I noticed as I was putting these slides together is just how much. I mean, if you look at this photo on the right hand side, we're still in the heart of Melbourne there. And you can't see a single building. I suppose getting to your point of distance back from the river. I mean, you could be in a national park when you're out there paddling on that. And it's clearly aesthetically, you know, fantastic. But that's that's sort of that's planning that's worked right. So there's certainly big stretches of the era where it's been done really well. Here's an example which happened earlier this year, you know, the festival that was on and we were paddling along and suddenly this music started and it was a pretty amazing moment really to have this sculpture of this eel. And, you know, it sort of brings home a bit how there's different community groups that want to be right near the river. But can you tell us a bit about the eel and the sort of nature of the scope sculpture about this one? Yeah, well, I think this demonstrates that the era is a key open space for art in Melbourne. You know, this gives you the open space. It gives you the kind of reason to put art up. So that's the first thing I think I'd like to say. The second thing is the shortwind deals are amazing. They're fantastic creatures and no wonder they're celebrating it with an artwork like this, which I must say I really wanted to see that I missed out because of COVID somehow or other. I couldn't get beyond the five kilometres at the right time. So the shortwind deal, they are tough as anything. They're really tough little buggers and they can go over land. So they can get around Dites Falls if they want to. There's now a fish ladder at Dites Falls. Before that, they could climb the climb around and move up the river. And eventually they go up to breed. I think it's some two to 4000 kilometres away up in the Coral Sea and they transform. Whoops, I've lost the background. Anyhow. Am I still there? Hello. Hello, Andrew. Marcia, am I still online? Yes, you are, but I think we just lost Richard. Okay, so I should keep talking about eels. Yeah, sure. I will share my screen. So the eels spend 20 years fattening up on the river and then they swim up to the Coral Sea. They lose their mouths, they change shape and they swim through the saltwater to breed. And then they come back as tiny little glass eels as elves that arrive back in the river. So that's a fantastic life cycle. And of course they were a key part of the economy of the Rundri Wurrung and the Kulin Nation, who used to meet at the Bollen Bollen Billabong in Bulleen every year before it was Bulleen. And there would be a big Kulin Nation festival there which was really made possible by the large number of eels from the protein available from the eels. But the Rundri would spend considerable amounts of time preparing for the big meeting and they would be killing and smoking possums that hang the possums inside a hollow tree with a fire at the bottom. In preparation for all these other traditional owners to come and meet at the Bollen Bollen Billabong, they'd store the, they'd be hunting possums and they'd store the hides. And then over winter after the festival was over, they would scrape those hides and turn them into the famous possum skin cloaks. Thanks for that, Andrew. My Zoom just played up momentarily there. I will just check that it's all working okay. Can you see the slides now, Andrew? No, I'm seeing launch meeting on Zoom. Oh, dear. Hold on. Okay. You just need to go to present a view, I think, or slideshow. There we go. All right. Zoom's having its revenge on me. Let's move to the next slide. Sorry about that. That's okay. So, you know, we've mentioned, I suppose, a few limitations with some planning decisions around the CBD, but it's pretty exciting to see this Yarra strategy plan emerging. I'm keen to get your view on probably the process by which that was put together and your view of it as a bit of a solution for where we're going. That would certainly be good to hear. Yes. So the, I guess the two things I feel that have happened in my time as riverkeeper, the seeds were sown by Ian Penrose was the Yarra River Protection Act, which means keep the borough alive in the language of the reundry of the Yarra catchment. And the other thing was the Yarra planning controls, which probably it's a real pleasure to see that at the beginning of this year they were confirmed. And the two pieces slot together really. So the Yarra, but that's been said at the Yarra River Protection Act that it was an act for a plan. And so this plan is the Yarra strategy plan, and it has been rather a long time coming. I think we've been waiting and waiting and waiting. And we're still waiting. And we hear that it's about to be released, but we've heard that a number of times. So I'm very keen to see it come out and start doing its work. I think probably it's going to be a strong plan. There's been a lot of consultation around it. There was a planning panel held in the middle of last year about it in which the reundry said that they didn't feel sufficiently involved. So I think that has now been addressed. It's really, really exciting to see it. I mean, my view, Richard, is let's get it out there. Minister. Do you know what the hold up is? Is it just sitting on the minister's desk or? Sitting on the minister's desk is all I know. Of course, I'm not on the inner circle, but as far as I know, it's sitting on the minister's desk. There's some little hiccup that I think we should leap over whatever that hiccup might be. And I guess the other thing I'd say about it, if we've got a great plan, let's fund it. Let's give it decent funding. So I'd really like the government in its next budget May 2022 to really put some significant funds into the Yarra River and allow this plan to be transformative. How much money, Andrew? Do you know? Well, I was walking around Merrick's Beach with a friend of ours, Richard Simon. And I was saying that I wasn't all that thrilled by the North East link, given that it looks like we're going to spend $20 billion of it on it. And Simon challenged me. He said, well, what would I suppose. So what I said is, you know, how much better would the Victorian environment be if we spent $20 million on it, the whole Victorian environment, instead of on 26 kilometers of road. And Simon threw it back at me and said, well, how would you spend it? And I was really challenged by that. And I have started a couple of posts on LinkedIn, kind of working out how I would spend the $20 billion across the Victorian environment. So anybody can go to LinkedIn onto my thing and find that post. I guess my answer then, Richard, is $20 billion. But let's go big. Let's forget the roads and invest in the environment. Presumably the implementation of the strategy is costed somewhere. Yes. But I think it is not what I would want it to be. I would like to go further. You'd prefer us to go further. I would prefer us to go further. I think the environment always gets pushed down the list. And of ironic though, isn't it like we obviously have a lot of meetings with various organizations that are working on this. And they all want to collaborate. These strategies are great document for collaboration. And there's actually a lot of private money looking for a home in that sort of area of conservation and carbon credits, biodiversity credits. It seems like there will never be a better time to achieve really big change with a combination of government funding and private sector. And you see it in the agriculture sector where a whole of catchment works are going on, like with the Malone Institute, for example. With multiple stakeholders, multiple large farming properties all working together, leading to great outcomes. So you'd reckon we could get our act together. We've planned it. We've got a strategy. I just don't quite understand why the minister would sit on it. Like you say, it's a change in thinking, isn't it? Like 20 billion on the Yarra or 20 billion for a northeast link? Well, it's an interesting equation, but I think maybe we can do both, Andrew. I think the word collaboration is key to the strategy plan. So the intent of the plan is to get people to work together for a better river. So talking about working together better. You've attempted to embrace citizen science as an organisation. How successful do you think that's been? And I guess how meaningful has that been in terms of really creating change for the Yarra River? Fantastic question, Richard. You know, that's playing right to my strengths. And I would illustrate it with the polystyrene work we're doing. So we spent first under Dr Nicole Koalczyk as our Literary Research Officer, and now under Anthony Despotelis and working with the Clean Water Group in Queensland. And thanks to, and I would be quick to add this, thanks to funding from the State Government through the Port Phillip Bay Plan, which came out of selling in the docks, we've really pushed the understanding of litter out quite considerably. And so what we did is we studied what was in the litter. We went to the Parks Victoria litter traps, we did samples, and what the results showed is that half the litter in the river is polystyrene. Half is polystyrene. And it's not, the interesting thing is that often we target consumers about litter, but it's not consumers that are contributing this polystyrene. It's loading bays at shopping centres and building sites. And we've identified this and that just sort of shows you the power of citizen science to be able to figure out what the problem was by coming at it at an innovative way of thinking. So this wasn't research that was being done by anybody else, it was a kind of gap. And people were sort of funding litter pickups, which are great things to do and raise community winners. But it wasn't really identifying where the problem was. And that demonstrates the value of citizen science, I think. And certainly there's an opportunity with the new EPA Act to expand citizen science. And I'd point out that my colleague Neil Blake on the Port Phillip Bay and the St Kilda Eco Centre led by April Seymour to work in this area, I think, of citizen science and promoting citizen science. And interestingly, we cooperate with them on a microplastics study, which has been temporarily held up by COVID. And when the Commissioner of Environmental Sustainability did her report on the Yarra Parklands, she said that the information on the Yarra's litter was good. And the reason it was good was because of the work that we've done so there's a bit of a gap that we're definitely filling there. It's a huge gap, I think, in terms of... We commissioned a study with University of Melbourne to just see if there was a better way to monitor the Yarra River. And I was surprised at how little real monitoring was going on. And some of the great citizen science projects of the past, like Water Watch and that sort of thing, a lot of the data wasn't really getting used. So I know we're looking at it together to try and work out a way to embrace citizen science more. But I can't help thinking that nearly everyone has a mobile phone these days and that is a telemetry device that we can use with the observations that people make to really discover more of that low-hanging fruit like the polystyrene example is a great example of... Well, it's pretty easy to work out what to do next, right? But if you don't monitor something, you can't really work out if you're being successful. So if we're about to invest $20 billion in a strategy like this is the Andrew Kelly $20 billion strategy now, it would be really nice to see a return on investment monitored, right? So one could see the improvements. Obviously at our tutorial we're obsessed with monitoring, right? Thank you for monitoring. Thank you, Paddy. I'm all for monitoring, Richard. I think, and it's interesting with the healthy waterway strategy, which is the five-year plan from Melbourne Water, they've just put up a fantastic monitoring site, monitoring and reporting site, which really is lifting, I think, the standard of reporting on monitoring so that it's publicly available. And the Commissioner, of course, under the Yarra Act, was obliged to do the Yarra Parklands report. And it was a great effort the first time around, but I think it was pretty clear there was a lack of real data. But next time she does a report, I think there will be real data for her to report on. And a great opportunity to engage with communities who have some of that data can be citizens' science data. And I know you're exploring that. So part of the reason that you embraced citizen science was to discover solutions. I guess with the polystyrene one in mind, what's the next step there in terms of getting rid of the pollution problem of polystyrene? A lot of fantastic question, Richard, because this is very much on our mind at the moment on the Association's mind. We've invested four years and quite a lot of money in figuring out what the problem is and really nailing it down. We've done a lot of work on that and compliment the clean water group for the work they've done helping us to do that. They're specialists about installing retrofitting stormwater pits, pollution pits. So the next step is to get the funding to employ somebody to go out and start lobbying builders and lobbying shopping centres to clean up their act on polystyrene. I mean, it's a bit of a problem. There has been initiatives in the shopping centre area, but then they die away so that they last for a year or so and then a big department chain loses interest and so they stop doing it. And the local industry isn't very thrilled by the concept of recycling at their expense. Polystyrene that's come in with white goods from, say, China. So there's an issue there. And then we need somebody to go out and start talking to the Masters Builders Association and people like that to improve their practice notes and to really alert the industry that there's a real problem with polystyrene and they need to get it sorted. Polystyrene is used more and more in building, insulation, panels, all sorts of things. And it just flies away. If you start cutting it on site, if you're not careful, if you leave it on site overnight, it'll blow away. There's all sorts of things that we need to look at and persuade the industry to clean their act up. It sounds doable though, doesn't it? It doesn't sound like it's going to be the end of the construction industry. It sounds like a good management plan. So 50% of the litter, which is pretty amazing, isn't it? Like, what a great KPI, you know, it can reduce it by 50%. That would be good. Now, going to run out of time for Q&A if I don't accelerate a bit through some of these slides. We might need to be pretty selective on some of my questions. But there's a nice picture. I think we've touched on the solutions, I guess. What do you think the big ones are? You've mentioned implementing the strategy and needing a fair bit of money to do it properly. What's the low-hanging fruit? We've got polystyrene as one. What are the other ones that come to mind that would be a no-brainer for us to implement? Well, the first one that leads to my mind is more environmental water. More environmental flows for the river. The government's currently got 17 gigalitres in the Yarra's environmental entitlement. And I won't go into all the details, but just imagine that we're putting up a lot of dams so we're stopping water flowing. So the environmental entitlement is just giving a little bit of the water back to the river so that it can occasionally do a bit of a flood to have a bit of a spring flush, all those sorts of things. So that's the first thing that leads to my mind. Let's get some more water. I think the target should be 40 gigalitres, but I'd be very happy if it was lifted up to 30 or even 25 gigalitres in the next year. So that's a very doable target that will make a difference. And this will be one that will deal with climate change as well. I think regenerating the river banks, which is a project that the Yarra River Keepers is pursuing. We've got seven sites along the river. We've just done a regeneration report to guide people on how to replant the river. Because connectivity just makes such a difference to ecosystems and the health of ecosystems. If you can link them up, they're just a whole lot better. And so that the species can move up into the tributaries when it's the right time to move back into the river in bad times like droughts and floods. But also the birds can move up into the foothills of King Lake and then fly back down to the river when it's appropriate in their breeding cycle. So there are the two things I'd be going for, connected river and more water. So the whole connection thing seems doable. It seems to be one of the sort of underpinning things in the overarching strategy too. And there seems to be a good willingness for organisations like Greening Australia, et cetera, to collaborate. So once the minister signs off, it sounds like that dream of connectedness might really come to reality subject to enough funding. What funding sources have you seen other than government that has been applied for those two things you've looked? Well, maybe putting water aside and looking at the restoration or regeneration side of things. Where has the money been coming from today? Government. It is all government. For the regeneration projects, yes, but we are looking to innovate and perhaps get, say, a business to adopt a particular site to regenerate, to fund the regeneration of that, to have ownership, not literal legal property ownership, but to have imaginative or psychological ownership of that site so they can revisit it and see their trees grow. But up till now, we've been largely dependent on government for that sort of work. We do get funding from other sources, the AEGN, the Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation. But for the regeneration work, we've been largely dependent on government to date, but the association is innovating on that front. It does seem to be an opportunity about monetising some of these biodiversity credits and that sort of thing, which hopefully will, you know, get those linkages happening. I thought it would be worth just, obviously, your passion for the rivers, what drew you to the role. And I think sometimes people forget how diverse the Yarra River is. So I thought we might just do a quick sort of tour up the river with some of these images to remind people of how good it could be down the bottom as well as how beautiful it already is up in the top section of the river. But I mean, this just shows, I'm not sure exactly where that picture is, Andrew, just to put you on the spot, but I don't think that's, I think that's part of still in Inna Melbourne, isn't it? That river on the right there, the Yarra. I would have thought it was well up the river. Well up is it? Okay. Where would that be, do you think? Healesville or? I'd even go past Healesville. Oh, I think. Quite narrow there, but I could be wrong. Let's keep it back in Melbourne, but on the right. Do I get a prize if I get it right? Yeah, well you do. You can't be wrong actually. I wanted to show a few of the creatures that live in the river. Obviously the seal that's been habitating the river has drawn a lot of attention. I think it's nearly as popular as the Yarra keeper himself. He's got 17,000 followers or something. But here's what the Yarra looks like right upstream in the headboard is there. Do you think that's what it used to look like down the bottom before we came along and built our cities and that sort of thing? Really good question. I mean, this is mountain forest we're looking at here with the tree ferns and probably the mountain ash, if not the manna gums. Probably further down it would have been river red gums along the river. It would have been a slower river. It would have wound me and more. So it would have been probably manna gum woodlands would be one thing but this is quite, the detail is in our regeneration port about which sort of environmental, sorry, vegetation class there is on different parts of the river. But I think manna gum woodland would probably be a pretty important one. And that's beautiful. You get those complex trees, you know, rather than the straight trees, which are truly lovely, you also get the ones that sort of go out and create lots of... Well, let's look at the birds for a minute. Well, there's a nice photo. Where would that one be? Andrew, do you know where that is? Manna gum air arrow. My guess that it'd be in the Yarra Valley. Probably, I'm just trying to think of it, you go across the bridge, you come down and you go down onto the river flats on your way to Hillsville. Would be my best guess. And it's a lovely part of the river. That's absolutely beautiful, isn't it? Everett's Park, I think, perhaps. We'll just scroll past that. I wanted to get to... So you've spoken about connection and this vision, this strategy to, I guess, ultimately turn a large portion of Yarra into a connected park, right? A beautiful native park. People may not be aware of how many native animals and birds we have there, but we've been talking with these Victoria recently and quite a few of them are endangered. And there's certainly a strong focus on working together to rehabilitate, to give them all a home. But what was really interesting I found after the bushfires was how much money people were willing to put towards saving koalas, right? I would have thought it's a good opportunity to engage public to save things like this one. What is this particular creature we've got here, Andrew? I'm guessing it's a ledi, a leadbeater's possum. Okay, so that's one of the endangered ones. Well done there. Thank you. I'll collect my prize at the end. They are beautiful animals. And this is what it's all about. Cool little thing. Looks relaxed, but maybe not. There's some bats. Do you think bats are good? There seems to be a lot of bats sort of up around Q. Is that a successful relocation? Has that been a sustainable move? I think it is sustainable. Of course, when I was growing up as a kid and I reckon when you were growing up, Mitch, that there was no bats in Melbourne. And I remember going up to Brisbane and seeing bats on the golf course in Brisbane and going, wow, you know, wish we had these things in Melbourne. Of course, they then turned up about 10, 20 years later in the Botanic Gardens. And that didn't thrill the Botanic Gardens because they were damaging the trees and they're hanging off a dead tree here and I reckon they probably killed it off. So there's some costs to the bat colony, but I think it's just fantastic. I love it when they come out of dusk and fly over the city. You know, I'm in Q when I'm not down here. I'm down here for the lockdown because we're selling Q if anybody wants a house. But the other thing is about that I'd really like to mention about these guys is on a hot day, go down to Bellbird Park on the Yarra in Q and you watch them drink. And the way they drink is that they, it's got to be a hot day. They swoop down onto the surface of the water and then they dip their chests, their furry chests in the water and then they fly up and hang upside down and the water drips down into their mouths from their fur. But the way they sort of dive bomb the water is truly fantastic to watch. So we're pretty lucky I reckon to have this mob in Q. I've actually paddled up the river when they were all waking up and coming, flying down, doing literally that. It was fantastic actually. Wow. I've only seen it from the bag. So we'd better go to Q&A, but I guess it's good just to reflect on, you know, the amazing diversity of vegetation and, you know, animals that are present there. And before we move to Q&A, I just want to thank you for your contribution to protecting it. Now to the tricky part, Q&A. So we've got two in the Q&A and seven in the chat. We might start with the chat. Excuse me. Kay Rodham to everyone. That is the Yarra near Healesville. I presume that was about that picture we were trying to locate where that photo was. Oh, there's... Bridget wanted us to wind up. Okay. Kay Rodham to everyone. Building green infrastructure, including a budget for this in the infrastructure strategy. I absolutely agree with Kay. It was part of the Yarra Overaction Plan, which was the plan from the Ministerial Advisory Committee that recommended that there be a Yarra at. So they wanted a green infrastructure task force and I think they should extend that into a green infrastructure... Sorry about that. Quiet. Not listening to me. So yeah, I absolutely think if you've got an infrastructure Victoria, we should have a green infrastructure Victoria. One minute. All right. Andrew sorts out his dog. We'll switch to the Q&A box. Amanda Stone. Andrew, how do you reconcile arts and celebratory activities along the river with their light and sound and sometimes explosions which impact on the natural features of the river including fauna which live in and along the corridor? Just a sort of fantastic question I would expect from Amanda. A thorny and difficult one. I always think that I'd get rid of the explosions I don't really like the explosions on the river. I think if we want dolphins in the river if we want seals in the river then I'm just going to put her down. Then we've got to stop using fireworks and we have a seal in the river and we've had dolphins in the river but we really have to work hard to create an environment that's suitable for them. So certainly noise I think is a big factor. I mean likes is perhaps a bit more complicated. I mean we're always challenged between this notion of loving the river and loving it to death. So we want people to love the river but we don't want them to love it to death and I think the lights fall somewhere in that category. I mean there's a proposal for a zipline across the river and I just didn't think that was respectful of the river. Sorry about that. That's alright. We will move on. So it sounds like fireworks are out if we want dolphins in. In terms of next question. Giuseppe from Zoo's Victoria to Andrew. What an amazing experience that you have. Sorry about that. Sleep. Giuseppe. How can we keep in touch with you and keep your good work on without stalking you of course? And a technical question. Has the river flow been affected by the climate effects? Rainfall included in the recent decade. Let me ask the second question. First Giuseppe. Yeah absolutely. I think flows are 20% down in our waterways in the central region which is the Yarra region and a few other regions but it's a very significant impact that we're not quite registering as damaging as it is. And there is a sustainable water strategy at the moment. There is a draft consultation draft the government's calling it out soon. And it's a review of the sustainable water strategy for the central and Giftsland regions and it's about how to address that loss of water in the catchments. We are at a real risk of draining those catchments to feed our thirst for water. Is the diesel plant a useful way of sort of allowing us to have both? Yes look I think it is. I mean I know that the diesel plant comes with environmental costs but my suspicion is that if we don't have a diesel plant we will just drain every river we can see every creek, every river, every streamlet, every stream of any decent water flow. So I think we're stuck with the necessity of having another diesel plant in the Geelong region. Right. Alright next question. Meg, Pethie Bridge. I could listen to your talk all day Andrew. Thanks to you and Richard looking forward to seeing those attitudes shift in society so the environment gets appropriate water and funding. Well thanks very much for that Meg. Surin Basil. Hi Richard. Do you have any kayak competitions, festivals on the era? Well there's a good question. We used to that's for sure before sort of lockdown came along. There's one that goes from Marysville to Melbourne which was a multi-sport event and races the whole way along and which is fantastic right. You really get a feel for the whole of the era and then you've got the Victorian kayaking association which holds various events which yeah so there are quite a few events around. We paddle every three times a week on the Yarra River. We've got a good squad going and there's a new association forming the Victorian Ocean Ski Club which well the association's been set up but we're looking to establish a home on the Yarra River as well and run various events out of there. Carolyn Hall from the Maloon Institute. Congratulations Andrew on all your hard work as the Yarra River Keeper. Look forward to your next steps. Do we have any more questions? I didn't answer Giuseppe's question. He asked about contact afterwards and I probably will set up another website but I do have one at the moment which is Andrewkelly.com.au if anybody wants to track me down. Thank you for that thought Giuseppe and may it be good to hear from you. I hope the goal is going well and then I really like the idea of a kayak festival on the River Round Princess Bridge perhaps. Saturday Arvo everybody gets out in their kayaks have a few competitive events but kind of I'm not sure. Over you Richard. Well I guess Andrew sort of begs the question and he used you to help us get our vision achieved of a nice paddling club on the Yarra River. Thanks for wanting to keep involved. We'll use you that way for sure. But you may miss this role don't you think? Why are you stopping? It's only been seven years. Well chatting with somebody this morning I don't want to vacate the water space and it was good to hear from Carolyn at the Maluna Institute. And so I don't want to vacate the water space but I don't really want to keep doing a marathon at a sprint pace. So I'm going to take the opportunity to be a bit more leisured about it and let somebody else pick up that role. I also think there's a real opportunity for somebody else to take the role and do something new with it, something fresh. I mean just an exciting role but I think there's a real opportunity and I'll be around. I'm working with various groups at the moment. I'm involved in the sustainable water strategy group which is very interesting and satisfying. So I'm kind of not going up in a puff of smoke. I'll still be around just with a bit more leisure time. That's good. It sounds like a good sustainable model. Well Andrew we're well past our one hour and I think it's... No, no it's not your fault. I just like to say thank you very much for participating and also thank you very much for your contribution and look forward to continuing to work with you around the Yarra River even though you think you've maybe taking it a bit easier. So thanks very much for your time today. Thank you Richard and keep up the great monitoring work. Thanks Andrew. Cheers.