Finding Melbourne's Nature
Finding Melbourne’s Nature is a walking conversation series exploring the wild places within the city.
Ecologist Ben Cullen walks through reserves, wetlands and remnant bushland across Melbourne/Naarm with Traditional Owners, First Nations voices, conservationists, scientists and community members, each choosing a place that matters to them.
Together they walk and talk about what lives there, what’s changed, what needs protecting, and their own journey in learning about and caring for nature.
You’ll hear footsteps on tracks, birds overhead, wind in the trees, and the city never too far away.
Finding Melbourne's Nature
Newport Lakes with Dr Dominique Hes
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Newport Lakes is one of Melbourne's most remarkable examples of ecological restoration. Once a working bluestone quarry, it has been carefully transformed into lakes and a rich variety of habitats that now support a remarkable diversity of wildlife. It isn't a recreation of the landscape that once existed here, but an example of how a profoundly altered place can become ecologically rich once again.
In this episode of Finding Melbourne's Nature, I walk through the reserve with Dr Dominique Hes, researcher, educator and author of The Stories of Newport Lakes.
Dominique has spent much of her career exploring how people form relationships with places, and how those relationships shape the way we care for them. As we walk, she shares the story of Newport Lakes, the community that fought to protect it, the people who helped shape it, and why understanding the story of a place can change the way we see it.
This is a conversation about restoration, community, and the idea that even landscapes changed by people can become thriving places for both nature and us.
I'd like to acknowledge the Bunerong and Boonerong people as the traditional owners of the land where this recording was made. Over the past few months, I've been walking through reserves around Melbourne, NAM, and recording conversations along the way. I've met with traditional owners and First Nations peoples, conservationists, ecologists, and others who've chosen a place that matters to them. We walk and talk about nature, what lives there, what's changed, and what needs protecting. You'll hear our footsteps, the wind in the trees, the birds overhead, and the city not too far away. This is Finding Melbourne's Nature. In Newport, in Melbourne's inner west, is Newport Lakes, a 33-hectare reserve of lakes, wetlands, grassy areas, and rocky escarpments. For around a century, this was a working bluestone quarry. After that quarrying ended, the damage to the landscape was carefully transformed into lakes and a variety of habitats for wildlife. Today, rings dart between the shrubs, turtles surface in the lakes, and skinks scatter through all the grasses. My guest is Dr. Dominique S, a researcher, educator, and author whose latest book is The Stories of Newport Lake. Much of Dominique's work has focused on how people form relationships with places and how those relationships can shape what happens to them. She spent several years piecing together the history of Newport Lakes and recording the memories of the people connected with it. As we walk, she shows me how to read the history of the reserve through the landscape around us. We talk about the quarry's history, what happened after it closed or almost happened, and the people who helped create the reserve that exists today. Along the way, we'll encounter wildlife that now lives here comfortably and hear why understanding the story of a place can change the way we see and care for it.
SPEAKER_04Cool. Yeah, well, if you're talking about birding, uh the Martin Hilsebusch, who's the person who did all the work, uh, he talks about when he first started here, he's a mad birder.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_04Uh, in in sort of '88, there were two families of fairy wren.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_04That was it. Really? And you know, noisy miners and all that. And um and now there are over 212 species that have been spotted, I believe, of different birds.
SPEAKER_02And how's that come about? Just a rehabilitation or?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so um that's kind of what this book was about, uh, was trying to capture. So it was like a moonscape. Yeah. Uh they stopped quarrying here, they started quarrying in 1868 and they stopped quarrying in 1968, so exactly 100 years. Uh, but then the operations that were making cement and concrete using aggregate stayed working here uh till the early 70s, and then it ended up being bought out by the city of Williamston at the time, and then it was uh kind of ignored for a few for about 15 years. Uh different councillors came and had visions, and then others wanted to fill that with rubbish, and then others had visions. People who the councillors who were worried about rubbish and things like that were thinking, oh, great place to dump a bunch of rubbish, make a landfill. But the community saw the beauty in it and snuck in, and kids swam and did all sorts of things in this area. Uh, and obviously the people who had bought around it were very keen for it not to be a dump. And so there was a whole lot of um agitation for about 20 years about trying to save this, and that culminated in '95, where the council had a a vote to make this into a dump. And um two councillors, Mary Burbage and uh Geraldine Schut, the mayor and one of the councillors, said no and crossed the floor. Whereas the nine others said yes, and um the council, um the community were outraged, and that's all captured in this. That took me the longest trying to pick what happened when. Uh, but the community were outraged and uh they caused so much fuss that um in the negotiation with the community they they just said we'll we'll fill up this northwest hole.
SPEAKER_02And this so they're quarrying bluestone out of here. That's right. And did that bluestone, would that have ended up in places in the city of note?
SPEAKER_04Uh so the first bluestone that was taken out from the um 18. Sorry, we've just got a flock of birds flying over us. Very beautiful. Uh the um, yeah, so the early, maybe the early 20, 30 years of the quarry, the along with a whole bunch of other quarries in this area, the bluestone would have been sent as ballast back to the UK. And you'll see it in the cobblestones of Coven Gardens and and so forth. So I think there's a I went to Coven Gardens and and chased up some photos of bluestone there now. You can't tell it it's exactly from here without carbon dating.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Uh the carbon dating of this bluestone is about 3.1 million years old.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. But anyway, so that was the early bluestone. Some of it would have been used, the good bluestone would have been used for um construction of the really churches and schools and council buildings and things like that. Otherwise, they would have been used for foundations mainly rather than for full houses. Yeah. Just because it's a very hard stone and it takes a lot of work and money to make them into good using good use blocks for houses.
SPEAKER_02And your your book, The Stories of Newport Lakes, shows an image of what it might have looked like.
SPEAKER_04Um when the Yellow Kit Willem were the indigenous um holders of the knowledges of this place, uh they would have what this would have looked like would have been some bluestone outcrops over there. Yeah. Because the early surveyors called this Stony Rise. So there's, and they showed that there were a whole lot of bluestone kind of little pixelations, um, that this was that area. And if you look at the 1945 map of where the quarry started, it's sort of started in that corner. And it's also the highest point, so we'll we'll walk over there. Uh also if you look at the artifacts from the quarrying, you see that the early quarrying was done with huge pikes and gunpowder, and that creates a different remnant artifact than the stuff that was done later with gel ignite and the stuff that was done later with um you know huge machineries and so forth. So, and you can track that through the remnants that we'll see in a minute. Um, but it would have been grasslands, it would have been outcrops of um She Oaks because this area is called Court Book Book, which is um many Shiokes or Shiok Shiok Many. And if you have a look at the rates notices of this area, it's still called the parish of Kakpo-poor, which was the inglification of Court Book Book.
SPEAKER_02Wow, that's incredible!
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. So it's still it's still in our rates notices that um that that original name for this place. And and that name was not just for this place, it was for this whole area. So it would have been grasslands, she oaks, uh, and lots of bluestone sticking out of the ground.
SPEAKER_02Wow. And as we're talking, I'm seeing New Holland honey eaters, I'm seeing blue wrens, it's it's a it's great to see this habitat still around in a space that's the landscape has suburbia a lot around it and how big is the reserve?
SPEAKER_04So it's 32 hectares altogether, of which um 19 hectares is the lake spit, and then the rest is sort of dog park and filled-up area with rubbish that has been turned into sports areas and picnic areas and things like that.
SPEAKER_02And is it managed by council or Park Victoria?
SPEAKER_04It's managed by council. Yep. Yeah. Uh they have they have I don't know, I think four to six ranges, but of those ranges they're managing over, I believe, either 40 or 70 MCGs worth of land, so this is like a small patch for them. So we're just walking here to the plaque for Martin Hilzerbusch. So Martin was the foreman of this area and he did a lot of planting, he did a lot of hydro seeding. Uh he'd come back and things wouldn't take and he would do it again. Uh he just most of the things that you see were things that he planted. Uh what the Friends Group has been doing uh since the launch, well actually since 1997, uh, has been actually monthly. And this Sunday, there's one, but monthly workshops doing plantings and so forth. And then the council does a whole lot as well.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, so that's um And this is the 10th anniversary of the dedication of Newport Lakes as a park, and that's from the 14th of December 2005.
SPEAKER_04That's right, yeah. So the place was launched in 1995. Wow, and Martin started doing the work of creating and sculpting the lakes in um 88.
SPEAKER_02Jesus, grasses, everything looks fantastic. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and and we're coming to the highlight. And look, this is a seasonal marker. So this is one of the Bunarong seasonal markers, so we're we're looking at a whole bunch of wattle that's just forming its flowers, which is this the start of the end of the bereine season. Uh which is winter, old man's sun. Old man's son. Oh no more sun in the um translation. Uh we're looking here at a um the types of animals and birds and wildlife that you see here.
SPEAKER_02Yep, on a sign. Yep.
SPEAKER_04On a sign, and uh one of them shows a short-finned eel.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_04And I've I'd never seen an eel up until last weekend when I saw an eel, and it was a whopper. I reckon it was, yeah, over two metres long. I'm not sure how it got here, but uh I've seen every other creature um that um is in here, but I hadn't ever seen an eel. And the growling grass frog is no longer with us, uh unfortunately, and that's um because somebody released carp and somebody released mosquito fish and they have decimated the the biodiversity.
SPEAKER_02I see, oh that's terrible news.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, it's it's one of the plans that the council has to um part of the conservation plan is to get rid of the carp. Because it's a cult closed system, we can do that by electrolysis, so you you um zap zap an area of water, everything floats to the top, not just stunned, and then you collect the carp.
SPEAKER_02And we're walking along the stepping stones. The stepping stones. What's the origin of these?
SPEAKER_04So Martin grew up in the Netherlands in Amsterdam, and he had a favourite park with a lake with stepping stones, and so he had really lovely memories as a child with those stepping stones. You also see how you can see a log there with lots of scratches. Yeah. So at dawn, about a hundred cormorants, because they all live over there in the dead trees, line up here.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_04And um that's that's where they're holding on with their claws and then their uh their morning uh ablutions.
SPEAKER_02It's a prudent way of putting it. And the water's really clean and clear.
SPEAKER_04It is fairly clear. Uh it's it's um we're above water table here. It's it's actually pumped up uh in the mornings um from the Weraby aquifer.
SPEAKER_02Oh really?
SPEAKER_04Uh which makes it um quite a mineral-rich water.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_04Which is why part of the conservation plan from the council is to make this northern lake more of a wetland.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_04Um bringing in a lot more plants and uh and so forth after we get rid of the carp.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_04And then have the South Lake, which is this one here, be the deeper lake.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_04Uh and that that will hopefully introduce enough diversity to bring back the which we'll have to bring in because it's a closed system, but to be able to sustain more local species.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04We're watching a whole bunch of really cute greebs. Greeves, aren't they cute? Creating arrows of ripples around the water, which is lovely.
SPEAKER_02It's a magic spot to be on a winter's day, and it's lovely. We can probably hear in the background the sounds of people enjoying this place, which is really lovely, you know, to think what an asset it must be to everybody who lives around, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we're gonna stand here and um have a little look at these dead trees over here. Because one of the things that Martin did was he, these were very deep holes up to 10-15 metres deep. Oh right. As well as 10, 15, 20 metres above us. So we're you know, there would have been 20 metres of stone above us where we're standing here.
SPEAKER_02It's a hard concept to imagine. It's a really hard concept to imagine.
SPEAKER_04It is, it is. Part of the deal with um um the community to make these into lakes was that the water level would be lifted to make it safe. And so a lot of the water, uh a lot of the depth of the lakes was filled up with clean fills, so rubble. And then Martin put a whole, about a metre of really sticky clay over the top of that. But because he did that, he could sculpt it the way he wanted it to be. So over in the South Lake we have an island there which creates a safe place for birds to nest and so forth, and we have some night herons that have their families there at the right time of the year. But he also planted a whole bunch of dead trees with that idea of these are ecological catalysts, these are safe places for these birds to roost. You said how long does it take to walk around? Oh no, somebody else said how long does it take to walk around? I said, Well, it takes 45 minutes or five hours, depends how many loops you do and at which layers. So there's actually three loops that Martin created to make the cliffs safe. He created um using fill again, these various levels that you can walk, walk across.
SPEAKER_02And and and what funding was he using to do this? How is he?
SPEAKER_04So he was mainly uh using his own um funding to do the um so part of the funding for filling the Northwest Lake up with rubbish, um, and it was inert rubbish, so uh meant to be non-protracible.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04We should describe the scene to everybody. Yeah. So the sun's behind us, everyone. Uh it's late in the afternoon, it's going down. Uh the reeds are all shining golden, and the grebes are just swimming across the reflection of the clouds with all their oranges and greys and whites.
SPEAKER_02I feel incredibly lucky to be here. Yes.
SPEAKER_04That's why I suggested coming in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I can see why.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04And gentle bird calls and it's crispy, crispy air.
SPEAKER_02Definitely. Really?
SPEAKER_04Says Ben with goosebumps on his eye. That's right.
SPEAKER_02So how did you find the place?
SPEAKER_04So we um we were lived in Yarreville and we were looking for a new house. Yeah. And we were walking around here and I thought, oh, this would be a great place to live nearby. And so we looked for a house nearby. So we moved to the area because of it. Really? How long ago was that? Uh 2007. Oh, okay. Yeah. And uh and then um a book that I wrote wrote called Designing for Hope. Uh, one of the people from America that I interviewed for that book was here in Melbourne and we walked around the park and he said back in 2015, you should write a book about this place. This is exactly what you're talking about in Designing for Hope. And I was like, oh yeah, good idea. Stick that in the memory box. And then in 2021, just near the end of COVID, um, I saw a house for sale and I had a friend Emily who was looking for a house. So I said, Oh, there's this house to sale, it looks perfect for your family. And then she um she came and looked at the house and and they ended up buying it, and then she said, You know whose house this is? I have no idea. She said it's Mary Burbages, who was one of the counsellors that crossed the floor. Oh, so saved the place, and she said she's very ill. So if you're serious about writing this book, now's the time to chat to her. That's how it started. So um between 21 and 24, I did all the research for the book and it came out in October 2024.
SPEAKER_02Amazing.
SPEAKER_04Uh here, because um I know you're interested in conservation. Um we're seeing about I don't know, five, six fairy wrens playing. And see these grasses?
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_04So the strategy that we have with the friends is that we plant a whole lot of this salt bush because it grows quickly, it's fire retardant, and it kind of trains people where not to walk. And then we clear patches and bring back the diversity of glass grasses once the community's trained not to walk through these areas.
SPEAKER_02I've never heard that. So you're using the the plants and the landscape to shape people's behaviour and then redoing it afterward.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, to a more natural state.
SPEAKER_02That's that's a whole different method. I haven't heard of that one before. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, uh, and so um and and you could just see how many fairy wrest were just popping around here. But what what the saltbush also does is it creates safe places for the little birds. Um you know, before we because the establishment of complex grass systems takes longer than the establishment of these saltbush, and they're fire retardant, which then helps with um uh if any fires happen in here. Uh so we're on the middle path right now, um, and um we're looking at some blue stone cliffs, and it's got uh what's uh a remnant of the quarrying. So what you're looking at is kind of where one of the big metal staffs would have come in, uh, and somebody would have dropped down a gelignite thing, lit it, and then run away, and then it would have exploded, and then this whole section of above us would have fallen down, and then people would have broken it into smaller blocks and carted it away. So that's that's what this is the story of this artifact is. And so from here to uh the picnic area at the north tip, north, west, east tip, uh, there are about 12 artifacts that you can see, and it's my theory that that's us walking back in time. So this would have been in the maybe 1890s.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_04And we're walking towards the 1860s. Uh and it's because of how different the remnants of that quarrying time is. And where we're walking now, which is the middle path, when this was an abandoned quarry with just lakes and cliffs, we would be walking on air right now. So we're about, what would you say, seven, eight metres above water level? Uh and this was part of that creation of those terraces that I showed you that Martin did to create the different paths that you can walk on and therefore the different microclimates.
SPEAKER_02So in an alternative universe, this probably would have been a this would have been filled with waste and capped off as a tip. And then become a park or sports field or something. Like that. But yet we're standing here amongst habitat. Yeah. Oh, that's a good story. Yeah. So the the vegetation that's here was the seeds collected from local areas or worked with any particular nurseries or anything like that?
SPEAKER_04So uh there was a nursery that was set up by Martin.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04Uh but to start with he um just tried to find indigenous plants.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_04Um, at that stage in the mid-80s, early 90s, there wasn't such a thing as completely local. So uh a lot of the species here are from WA, the older species. Yep. Um he's a bit embarrassed about that now, but it's it's like that's what it is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it is pretty good.
SPEAKER_04Beautiful, beautiful moss. Yeah. So green and vibrant.
SPEAKER_02And so how does the Friends group function today?
SPEAKER_04What's the uh so there's a yeah, um you pay $15 as a family membership for a year and they organise 10 sort of events.
SPEAKER_02It's hard to imagine there being and uh it's a stupid thing to say because I've got no clue, but it's hard to imagine there being a big enough economy just from this rock that it could be worthy to put in that much effort from here, get it to a boat that gets over to England. There's a lot of steps in that.
SPEAKER_04Well Well uh the the ballast, the reason that they needed the ballast was everything was coming from England to here, and they needed to stabilize the boats to get them back. Safely and so the economy was in that safety bit, not in the material itself. So once it was over there, people just used it for stuff.
SPEAKER_02As um habitats shrink around Greater Melbourne, do you see there being any potential to use this for translocations of rare species and things like that? Do you think it's safe and protective enough?
SPEAKER_04So there's a great story about that, which was we were um Suzette, one of the rangers, was um working with the Friends Group clearing a bit of salt bush in the northwest park now, which I'll show, which is where the northwest quarry was, which got filled in with rubbish. It's now sort of the dog park. And they were clearing all the salt bush out of that area because it's not of what was here. Here it would have been grasslands and um and she oaks, not saltbush. So they were clearing it, and then they found uh the cool tussock skink uh there, which is a not quite on the critical, but getting there. Uh and so they found some, and so uh, and the reason that it came there was that Martin would get a load of fill and he would inspect the fill, and he'll say, Okay, that can go there to make the path, that can go there to fill the to create the the clay base, or that's not good enough, it can go there. And he got whole bunches of sand because they were doing some development and flattening out the dunes and bringing so he got a whole bunch of sand and and salt bush dumped here, and so he started using that as mulching material around trees, but we'll see the sand remnants when we get up to the top there. Um, but with that must have come a colony of the skink, and now the skink's everywhere, and it's doing alright. It's doing great.
SPEAKER_02And you mentioned your book talking about hope.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Do you feel and you mentioned someone giving this as an example of hope? For you, is it part of that picture, do you think?
SPEAKER_04I think so. I think that's why I'm so happy to talk to you and share it with other people, walk other people around it, because I think the story arc that you have here that you can actually embody, experience here, is the Yellow Cutwillam knew the story of place and knew how to care for place because they knew its story. The settlers came and didn't, couldn't read this place, didn't understand this place and just extracted from it. And now we're relearning that relationship with place. We're re-falling in love with this place, we're caring for this place. And in doing that, it's giving back to us. It held us safe through COVID and it's holding the cool Tussock skink safe through its challenges. So, you know, I think there's a beautiful story there of who we can be as humans with a lot of the things we've broken. It won't ever be what it was, but it will be something different and beautiful.
SPEAKER_02So, what about yourself then? Where did your journey with getting interested in nature and conservation start?
SPEAKER_04Uh so I moved to Australia in '82. Um before that it was 10 years of living in South Africa, living in the Netherlands, and living in Brazil. So a lot of moved sort of 35 times by the age of 13. Oh my god. Been to 15 different schools, and so there was a very display displaced life and very, you know, you were always picked on as a new kid initially and so forth. And so that there's a lot of trauma in that. And nature was a place that was kind of constant. And um nature and maths. Maths all never changed no matter what language you worked in, and uh and nature. And so yes, I always kind of um went for long walks and spent time swimming in rivers and wherever I could as part of being safe, I think. I've never put those words into my mouth, but yeah, it's part of being safe. So walking back away from the dog park and walking back into the uh conservation bit, I guess you'd say.
SPEAKER_02Lovely sort of wooded area, still that salt bush. Everywhere. Everywhere, but glimpses of shrubs and things coming up and diversity, it's really good. Has there been any contaminated land found as part of the rehabilitation works?
SPEAKER_04Uh so there are um Melbourne Water has um pits all around the lake where they take regularly take water samples to look for contamination and the nutrient uh the mineral level of the water is increasing. I don't know, I haven't seen any reports about contamination. Uh I assume there is some. I know there is methane in the Pavy's hole part of the um park because that was filled with just any old rubbish in the 70s. Um people just bring their home rubbish, you know, bring a bag and throw it in.
SPEAKER_02The free tip was it too.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, sort of.
SPEAKER_02I don't know if it was free, but um, yeah. I'm seeing little glimpses of she oaks emerging here and uh in the things, that's a good sign.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, there's there's a fair bit of emergence happening, self-seeding, self um growing.
SPEAKER_03That's brand.
SPEAKER_04So we're walking into the amphitheatre now, uh, and this is a really special, this is my favourite and most special place. Geez, I like this grassy stuff. This is fantastic. So this is a great story here. So this is where the kangaroo apple comes up. You see that patch there? Yeah, that was burnt, and it's so much more rich with the coming up of the um kangaroo grass. This grass is all great, and the way the council manages it is by um not by burning but by slashing. Not that they don't want to burn, but um the community gets really upset when they see smoke coming out of it because they love the place so much. And so they also get a bit of flack, and so they've tried to find a different way of approaching the um the cool burns that would have happened here, but they did do a trial one, and this always is the most diverse grassland when it all comes out. So um, this is where we have the bush dance, so the the pavilions there, and everyone dances here, and everyone picnics over there.
SPEAKER_02Bush dance? When does that happen?
SPEAKER_04Uh March every year. Yeah. It's wonderful this year. And that's one of the places where I did the research. I put up a table, I put a big timeline down, and I had post-its and people wrote their memories on post-its along the timeline.
SPEAKER_02That's so cool. Um and the birds seem to like it down here.
SPEAKER_04They do. I'll show you a little secret spot where I like to picnic.
SPEAKER_02I don't know if words could do it justice, but we're sitting in an almost billabong style, surrounded by swamp paper bug and some redgums on the other side.
SPEAKER_04Lots of reeds. There's a beautiful family of um ducks that live up under that rock. Three little ones at the moment. It's a bit late for them, otherwise they're usually swimming and playing and because this is a no-bog area, the birds just feel really quite safe. Uh and they'll come up, come right up to you.
SPEAKER_02When you say you feel safe in nature from your experience, I can see why you feel it here a lot. It's a very peaceful place.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And um uh there's usually turtles colon neck and shortly connect here, and a friend of mine was walking up there at the path up there. You see the um pole there. Um, and um he saw a turtle making a nest, actually popping egg stand as he walked past.
SPEAKER_02Little pink um blue wrens just darting about the water. Oh, this is magic. Oh my god, I I can't believe I've never been here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_02Dom's career has taken some interesting journeys. She started off doing a science degree at Melbourne Uni, where she came out of it with a botany major. Sustainability really wasn't a field back then, so she came up with her own version of a course. And that took her to Amsterdam, where she studied environmental economics and environmental law, and then when she came home, a recession hit. There were no jobs, so she waitressed during the day and did a master's in engineering at night. Then she did a PhD in RMIT and architecture. She says she was chasing the same thing each time.
SPEAKER_04Uh my conclusion was what we need is is is a different way of thinking about our relationship to place and our role in place, and so regenerative development was kind of what I started feeding in Melbourne in about 2005.
SPEAKER_02Incredible.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so that's that's kind of the story, and but it's always been the question's always been how can we be better parts of a flourishing future, a flourishing ecosystem? How can we we're such amazing creatures, so creative and generous and in innovative and intuitive and is the destruction we're creating really who we want to be? Is that who we are? I don't think it is. And so my question is always like who is our true self? And I think Indigenous people have got a lot to teach us around that.
SPEAKER_02Well, through this project I've been looking at all these reserves around Melbourne and all the different people who've been involved in managing them or the different urban ecology views of of what we have and what we need. Do you have hope for conservation around a city like Melbourne?
SPEAKER_04Um I don't like the word conservation to be honest. Um I I think what we need is a different relationship. We don't need to protect it. We need to love it and care for it and have a relationship with it. Because I think as much as this is locked, locked off for dogs and bikes and fishing and swimming. So there is some rules. I think if you really love the place, you wouldn't do those things, and it might just be because you haven't learned that relationship, you haven't learned that story of place yet. Um and I think if we lock things up and say this is for nature and this is for us, we're actually breaking that relationship. So I I think conservation if it is about relationality and how to fall in love with place and care for place, yes, then I have lots of hope hope because if we don't do that, we're not gonna have any anything. Because if you if you have a place like this and you don't have a story to go back to, a developer will come along and go, Oh, I can make a lot of money for you, council, and and and nature will lose out because nature's not there saying, hey, what about me? What about me? Whereas what I was hoping to do with the book is say, this is how much value it gave the community during COVID, this is how much value it's giving nature. This is and that that kind of so and that's about the story of the relationship we have with this place, not about conserving it. I guess it's your definition.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So do you think for for nature in in maybe particular urban areas, based on what you're saying, there's a great deal of work to do in interpretation or facilitating people to build that relationship with nature more so than just protecting the nature itself.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah, that's really because if you love a place, you look after it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, pretty simple.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I wanted to share this with you. I don't know if it's gonna work, um, but one of the things that happened while I was writing the book is that a local musician, um Michael Stewart, um, wanted to write a song about the place, and so I was sharing chapters with him, and then he wrote a song, and I wanted to share that with you.
SPEAKER_00See the trees, the birds above. But the story started long ago. Twists and turns and tails of all.
SPEAKER_04So the sun's going down, it's getting colder. Yep. We're just walking to the um what you call it, little deck at the amphitheatre. And again, if you remember that image of what this amphitheatre was before Martin started working with it, it was just barren, there was nothing. And um what he did when he was sculpting it is he created this ring of lake that basically treats the water through all of the reeds before it goes into the main lake, so it absorbs some of the nutrients that are coming from the aquifer. And um, this is a place where if you like reed warblers at the right time of year, they they love this area.
SPEAKER_02It looks like a ripper, a bit of habitat. I saw some lignum before too, like there's some great vegetation around. Yeah. Well, when you see the photos in your book and and on the signs, you really realise. I mean, this looks so barren before, it looks so unnatural, so moonscape, yeah. Moonscape, yeah, to think of it thriving with this diversity is really exciting.
SPEAKER_04So what we've walked during this talk is maybe a fifth. Oh right. So um there's kind of the whole south east lake. Yep, that we haven't haven't walked or explored, and then there are because there's three layers, we've only kind of done one of the layers. Um, so you'll just have to come back.
SPEAKER_02I'll be back for sure, I can guarantee you that.
SPEAKER_04Maybe we can do a spring one or a summer one. And I can tell you some more stories.
SPEAKER_02Great fun with Dominic Hess. I learned so much, and I encourage you to check out the stories of Newport Lakes. It's available online or in good bookshops, and some of the proceeds even go to the friends of Newport Lakes, who are always looking for members, and a great group to join if you want to go get your hands dirty and do something special for nature. The song you heard was Michael Stewart with Court Book Book. It's online, and there's a beautiful recording of it live at Newport Lakes. And finally, if you like Finding Melbourne's Nature and want to hear more episodes, check out findingMelboyn's Nature.com or check us out on any of the streaming services. Thank you so much for your time. Keen, if you want to get in touch, tell me how the series is going or where I should go next. Thank you so much, hope you enjoyed.