Yarra4Life received funding from Our Communities Our Catchments to deliver this project between 2022 – June 2024. It is a unique opportunity to achieve multiple benefits including biodiversity, threatened species recovery, water quality, sustainable agriculture, river health, articulating and delivering on Traditional Owner aspirations and community empowerment by working across the landscape. 

This project will use integrated catchment management principles in partnership with a range of organisations through the Yarra4Life program to address numerous threatening processes. The project involves working with Traditional Owners, private and public land managers, and the broader community to: 

• Partner with Wurundjeri Woi wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation in the governance, planning and implementation of this project.
• Support landowners to build skills, knowledge and capacity in restoring landscape function, protecting biodiversity, increasing nutrient and water cycling and building soil carbon for resilient enterprises that can mitigate climate related pressures
• Establish a framework to enable future release sites for the Helmeted Honeyeater and lowland Leadbeater’s Possum through habitat and wetland restoration across the Yarra River floodplain building resilience of both species to climate change and extinction resulting from bushfire
• Improve the Yarra River floodplain, billabongs and riparian zones by planting indigenous vegetation, removing weeds and managing pest animals and improve water quality by reducing sediment, chemical and nutrient inputs.