About The Friends of Lower Kororoit Creek
Friends of Lower Kororoit Creek (FOLKC) was incorporated in April 2001 and held its first planting on 3rd June 2001. At this planting FOLKC had 201 volunteers attend, including twenty children and two dogs. The strength of FOLKC is that its membership involves all ages.
Over the past fourteen years, thousands of volunteers from many diverse cultural and industrial organisations have joined with FOLKC in planting in excess of 50,000 trees, shrubs and under-story plants along the creek within Hobsons Bay. This area has been transformed from an unkempt and hazardous drainage reserve to a remarkable walking track. A walk along this corridor of green is recommended.
Many other organisations are involved in the improvement plans and plantings that have been undertaken along this section of the creek including Melbourne Water, the City of Hobsons Bay, Toyota Australia and Millers Inn.
Through FOLKC initiatives since 2001, plans are now being put in place that will see the Kororoit Creek develop as one of the major waterways in the west of Melbourne. Some of these plans include:
• The Kororoit Creek Regional Strategy 2005 - 2030 developed by the Department of Sustainability:
• Landscape Master Plan for the Kororoit Creek within Hobsons Bay, developed in partnership with the Friends of Lower Kororoit Creek and Hobsons Bay City Council - to be completed by the end of this financial year; and
• The shared trail along the Kororoit Creek corridor has been incorporated within the $4.5M Barnes Road Bridge in Altona North - this trail, when complete, will link the Bay Trail in Hobsons Bay to the Federation Trail to Werribee and to other parts of Melbourne through the Metropolitan Trail Network.
FOLKC believes that in twenty to thirty years the Kororoit Creek health, environment and tourism values will have changed dramatically for the better and that the creek will then be part of a biodiversity corridor that allows flora and fauna migration along its length.