The Nature Corridor Collaboration, or The Corridor CoLAB for short, is a collaboration between environment and community groups across Moonee Valley who have come together to focus on creating healthy environments in our municipality. We are committed to caring for Country guided by Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung elders and community. It is a 'LAB' because we are incubating people-power, plant-power and wildlife-power to address the climate emergency.
The Corridor CoLAB Project is about visioning and acting so that Napier Park and Moonee Ponds Creek are healthy and connected. We are planning to invite residents that live in the streets between Napier Park and Moonee Ponds Creek to be part of our project. To form a Pollinator Pathway, we are offering interested residents the chance to make their garden or nature strip more attractive to local butterflies, bees, and birds.
As part of our project we are offering:
A working group has been established and meets monthly to plan and think through the logistics of this ambitious idea. There are representatives from:
Australian Conservation Foundation (Melb, NxNW)
Australian Plants Society Keilor Plains
Avondale Heights Community Garden
East Keilor Rotary
Friends of Napier Park
Friends of Moonee Ponds Creek
Friends of Maribyrnong Valley
Friends of Steele Creek
Maribyrnong River and Waterways Association
Moonee Valley Sustainability
Moonee Valley City Council
We kick started the project in Napier Park with Dr Luis Mata from Melbourne Uni who helped us find and identify insects which will help determine what we need to plant in the green corridor.
Pollinators are insects and other animals such as birds, bats, beetles, and flies that visit flowers in search of food, shelter, nest-building materials, and sometimes even mates. They are also an important part of the food chain. Pollinators move between flowering plants seeking nectar and pollen, and as they do they play a crucial role in producing seeds and fruit, including 75% of our food.
We’ve done the research and chosen plants that are most likely to attract the area’s local butterflies, birds and bees. As well as being beautiful, native flowers boost the health of other plants in your garden, by attracting predatory insects that will control pests and pollinate fruit trees and vegetables.
Just a few plants in your garden can be a magnet for wildlife, helping to create a Pollinator Pathway between the Creek and Napier Park. This, in turn, will help restore a healthy balance in the Park.
Napier Park is a small remnant Red Gum Woodland fragment of state Significance. Large-old remnant trees are in declining health.
One way to mitigate the decline is to reconnect Napier Park with scattered trees and habitat patches, to Moonee Ponds Creek and core habitat of Royal Park.
It is hoped that this will encourage the return of critical ecosystem function provided by invertebrates and woodland bird diversity.
It may be easier to grow and maintain native plantings, than lawn. A study on verge gardens in the Perth local government areas of Melville and Fremantle highlighted that gardeners simply found it easier to grow native plants on poor sandy soils than it was to grow lawn (Uren et al. 2015, Cited in Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Hub, 2021).
Contact any of the participating groups to find out more about the project. Alternatively you can email angela.clarke@maribyrnongriver.org.au to be looped into the project.