SIX ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE TO PROTECT OUR WATERWAYS

In the lead up to World Environment Day on Thursday 5 June 2025, Corangamite Catchment Management Authority (CMA) has issued a list of six actions that people can take to help protect our local waterways.

“Healthy waterways - such as our rivers, creeks, lakes, estuaries and wetlands - are the lifeblood of vibrant and thriving communities,” said Corangamite CMA CEO Dr Amber Clarke. “Traditional Owners have been caring for waterways on Country for tens of thousands of years, and we all rely on the benefits that healthy waterways provide including clean drinking water, habitat for native plants and animals plus incredible places for recreation, tourism and enjoyment.”

“World Environment Day is a timely reminder to everyone how important our waterways are, and how we need to take action to protect them for future generations, particularly in a year of drought conditions and a drying climate”

Corangamite CMA’s six actions to help protect our waterways are:

1. Rethink plastic
   • Refuse, reuse, recycle and rethink your use of plastics. Globally, an estimated 11 million tonnes of plastic waste leak into aquatic ecosystems each year.
2. Become a citizen scientist:
   • Become a Waterwatch / Estuary Watch volunteer to grow your knowledge and monitor the health of your local waterway.
   • Encourage your school to join the River Detectives Program, inspiring teachers and students to understand and care for their local waterway
   • Use citizen science apps to input observations to help all natural resource managers do better work – e.g. Feral Scan, Frog Census, iNaturalist.
3. Join your local Landcare network or group
   • Find your local Landcare network or group here, and/or volunteer for a ‘friends of’ group, clean-up group or other on-ground natural resource management group; meet likeminded people who actively care for the environment.
4. Adopt sustainable agriculture principles
   • Check out Corangamite CMA’s Small Blocks Big Dreams Healthy Hectares Guide and Brown Book (guide to managing soil health) for tips tailored to the Corangamite region
   • Sustainable agriculture principles include fencing off livestock from waterways, understanding soil properties, controlling weeds, maintaining groundcover, minimising or reducing tillage, eliminating crop stubble burning, protecting existing remnant vegetation, efficient water use, building carbon on-farm, supporting on-farm diversity, pest plant and animal control, and whole farm planning.
5. Prevent the spread of invasive weeds and diseases
   • Learn how to identify and control significant environmental weeds. Many of them jump the garden fence. One uncontrolled weed has the potential to reduce agricultural income, reduce land values and destroy large areas of bushland and habitat!
   • Arrive clean and leave clean from bushland and agriculture lands.
6. Stay informed
   • Sign up to Corangamite CMA newsletters including the Barwon Flagship Waterway, Living Moorabool Flagship Waterway, Small Blocks Big Dreams, Testing the Waters, Kitjarra-dja-bul Bullarto Langi-ut, Curdies River Community Update, Plains Facts, Citizen Science, and Landcare news.
   • Follow Corangamite CMA on facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
   • Attend Corangamite CMA and partner events

“Imagine the difference we could make if everyone in the catchment took just one of these actions!” continued Dr Clarke.

Led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and held annually on 5 June since 1973, World Environment Day is the largest global platform for environmental public outreach and is celebrated by millions of people across the world. The theme for 2025 is #BeatPlasticPollution, focusing on ending plastic pollution.

Corangamite Catchment Management Authority (CMA) is a statutory authority of the Victorian Government. It is the lead agency for integrated catchment management in the Corangamite region that stretches from Ballarat to Geelong and along the coast to Peterborough in the west.