SEPTEMBER is national biodiversity month, and community groups around the peninsula are playing their part in rehabilitating local environments.
The Mornington Rotary Club is involved in a project to help rehabilitate the indigenous vegetation at Hunters Crossing, a busy pedestrian bridge over Tanti Creek in Mornington.
The project was funded by a South East Water community grant and enabled by Tanti Creek Friends Group and local residents, who all pitched in for the recent mulching, spreading and planting of 300 plants two weeks ago.
Mornington Rotary Club president Brian Mann said the project was a great example of what Rotary can do.
“Environmental Sustainability has become a key area of focus internationally for Rotary and this project has demonstrated our club’s commitment to it,” he said.
“We really appreciated the support of Tanti Creek Friends Group coordinator, Marty Lenard, who has lent his expertise to plant selection and planting techniques, and the local residents who got involved in the planting.
“And of course, it was all funded by South East Water under their community grants scheme, and we do appreciate that.”
The project involved spraying by council contractors of the invasive kikuyu grass and the spreading of two truck-loads of mulch to supress its regrowth.
Then it was down to planting 300 indigenous plants, propagated by the council nursery at the Briars. The project was delivered over two weekends, one just before the winter and one at the start of Spring.
Mann said it had been a very satisfying project, consistent with what other Rotary clubs on the Mornington Peninsula were doing as part of the celebration of 100 years of Rotary in Australia and the Peninsula Trail.
“We look forward to the growth of the plants and more projects like this, that are appreciated by our community and are good for the environment,” he said.
More info at rotaryclubofmornington.org.au or on Facebook.
The shire is also celebrating Biodiversity Month by joining the greater Melbourne Bioblitz 2022, and inviting residents to get involved.
Bioblitz 2022 is a nature-based citizen science event run throughout September, encouraging people across greater Melbourne to record and share observations of their nature finds by uploading their photos to the citizen science app iNaturalist.
Observations will automatically be added to the Peninsula’s Bioblitz 2022 project.
For more information about iNaturalist, visit the shire’s iNaturalist page, and to keep track of the Mornington Peninsula observations go to https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/biodiversity-blitz-2022-mornington-peninsula-shire
First published in the Mornington News – 20 September 2022
