Partnership helps future-proof the bay

GEELONG Sustainability and Streamline Media will team up to create films that encourage greater understanding of Port Phillip Bay’s assets and threats.

This is possible thanks to a grant obtained through the Port Phillip Bay Fund for their project “Connecting your Bay: Using creative media to inspire, empower and motivate”.

Administered by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), the Fund supports projects aimed at maintaining and enhancing the Bay’s environmental value and addressing key threats to its health.

The Fund proactively encourages projects built on collaboration and partnership between diverse interest groups and organisations.

Building on an existing solid foundation of the film Melbourne Down Under and marine debris awareness video Rusty Swordfish, the partnership will – over the next year – produce a series of creative short films documenting the bay’s ecological assets, identifying management priority areas and highlighting the roles environmental groups play in managing them.

To bring the films to life, Streamline Media and Geelong Sustainability will collaborate with selected environmental organisations across community, industry and government to ensure each film is an effective platform to showcase the projects and initiatives future proofing Port Phillip Bay.

Streamline Media director Jarrod Boord said the “grassroots” level focus aimed to build stronger connections between community and partner organisations through greater awareness and appreciation.

Geelong Sustainability president Vicki Perrett said the project relied heavily on the support and contribution of volunteers drawn from the community and included a significant in-kind contribution from all project partners, in particular Streamline Media who would produce the films.

By distributing this material throughout schools and collaborative partner networks within the Port Phillip Bay catchment, and eventually to a far broader audience, it will encourage greater understanding of the bay’s assets and threats and has the capacity to directly influence people of all ages to share stewardship of Port Phillip Bay into the future.