Community caring for damaged creek

PLANT a tree this winter to make your contribution to protecting the Bendigo Creek.

The Northern Bendigo Landcare Group holds a number of revegetation works each year, including cleaning up the creek between Howard Street in Epsom and Millwood Road in Huntly.

President of the group Ken Beasley said they are dedicated to maintaining the streamside reserve area of Bendigo Creek.

“We take an active role in doing some weed control work, we do things like Clean Up Australia ay each year, we do National Tree Day and events around National Tree Day time to engage the community,” he said.

Mr Beasley said a big issue of the creek in Huntly is the litter and waste that flows down from the city centre, especially after storm surged.

“It is a challenging area the Bendigo Creek, it’s got a lot of issues essentially down in the Huntly zone because we kind of wear what comes down from Bendigo,” he said.

Issues with the creek stem back to the gold rush period, in the mid-1800s and over time the vegetation has been damaged.

“Vegetation removal, vegetation loss, firewood extraction, people come in there and take firewood out inappropriately, it’s not a firewood extraction area,” Mr Beasley said.

“There was a significant fire there in January 2019 which caused quite a bit of damage to vegetation, so we’ll take steps to replant some of those areas.”

The Northern Bendigo Landcare Group encourages members of the community to come to their National Tree Day planting event at 10am on 20 June, which will serve as an introduction to a bigger event in August.

Mr Beasley said the group plans on planting 1500 grasses, groundcovers and daisies, to fill in the gaps between shrubs and trees and protect against invasive weeds.