For over 13 years the City of Darebin has been funding the WaterWatch program via Merri Creek Management Committee (MCMC).

Darebin’s 23/24 budget has been released and it has not confirmed the funding for the WaterWatch program.

WaterWatch Victoria  is a 30 year program that enables   us to understand, monitor, care for and sustainably manage our most precious natural asset – water. It is a network of volunteer citizen scientists that monitor local waterways – it could be a creek, pond, lake, dam, wetland, lagoon or estuary. Within the City of  Darebin it is Darebin Creek, Edgars Creek, Merri Creek and Edwardes Lake.

WaterWatch programs support communities (from ages 3 to 80) to monitor the health of waterways; to learn through environmental education, and to participate in projects to protect, rehabilitate or restore the health of our waterways.

We are petitioning the City of Darebin to ensure that Merri Creek Management Committee (MCMC) receives that annual funding of $25,000 to run the following programs so that they remain free of charge to participants:;

• Support to 5 Darebin volunteer monitoring groups (Admin, annual reports, data entry)
  Merri Creek Rapid Response to Litter program support (preparing community events, answering community questions, loading citizen science litter data, preparing reports, cleaning out litter kits etc.)
• Kindergarten, Primary and High School Education
• WaterWatch training day for new volunteers 
• Frog discovery events including creating frog habitat 

We ask that you sign this petition, advocating for your local waterway and ensuring this important citizen science program continues.