This September, thousands of Melburnians will come together to celebrate and take part in the second ever Birrarung Riverfest – a three-week festival for our beloved Yarra/Birrarung River. With a huge range of events taking place up and down the length of the river, we speak to Carina Watson from Yarra Riverkeeper Association, the event’s masterminds, to find out what’s in store for 2024. 

Winter mornings on the Birrarung are pretty magical. Carina Watson knows this better than most. She’s an avid rower, runner and “river supporter” who spends plenty of time on or beside the water. “The river changes during the day,” she says. “On winter mornings you get mists, the light is really soft, it’s quiet, and you can see lots of wildlife. We saw a water dragon swimming past the boat a few weeks ago, and lots of birds use the river as a corridor.”

This love for the river – coupled with a background in horticulture, conservation, urban planning and business – led Carina to her current role as Operations Manager at the Yarra Riverkeeper Association (YRKA), an independent not-for-profit organisation in service of protecting and revitalising the Birrarung. “We have a vision for a healthy, protected and loved Yarra-Birrarung,” Carina says.

YRKA’s work involves advocacy and giving a voice to the community groups and people who care about the river; on-ground work like revegetation and litter clean ups; and collaborating with other organisations who act in service of the river, like government agencies, community groups or convenors – including Regen Melbourne. The YRKA is one of Regen’s valued partners, working with us toward the Wildly Ambitious Goal of creating a Swimmable Birrarung. “I’m a big believer in the Swimmable Birrarung project,” Carina says. “I think it’s a real catalyst for thinking about how we can improve the water quality.”

“The thing I really love about Riverfest is how diverse it is. We've got arts projects, storytelling projects, citizen science, cleanup events, talks and history events. So it's really the full range of people's interests in the river.”

YRKA also organises Riverfest, an annual celebration of all things Yarra-Birrarung, now in its second year. With funding from Burndap Birrarung, burndap umarkoo, the Yarra Strategic Plan collaboration, the festival has just unveiled its packed program of on water and river-adjacent events for 2024, running from September 1-22.

“Riverfest year two is bigger and better,” Carina says. “There are so many people up and down the Birrarung who have such a strong connection to it and are doing all sorts of interesting things. The idea of Riverfest is to give all of those people an opportunity to be part of something bigger that can give a profile to the river and reach a wider audience.”

The program was created from a call out for events and participants. It includes bird watching events, a bio blitz where people can log their sightings of flora and fauna via an app, and a river cruise where local writers will read letters, or ‘love stories’ to the river. 

A mini festival will be held over two days in Warburton with a wide range of events to celebrate all things Birrarung, while artist Deb Fisher is using the tennis balls that end up in the river to create an art installation on the river. “She's created something beautiful out of litter,” Carina says, “but it's also really highlighting a problem that a lot of people don’t realise, which is that everything that washes off the street down the stormwater drain ends up in the river, in the bay.”

Riverfest will open on September 1 with a Little Explorers event at Studley Park Boathouse on Father’s Day and close with a celebration at Federation Square on September 22, World Rivers Day, and will celebrate and acknowledge the river’s Traditional Custodians, the Wurundjeri and Bunurong Peoples, throughout the program.

“I hope attendees come away with a renewed appreciation for how special it is to have such a beautiful, natural feature in our city, and all the life and biodiversity that it supports.”

“The thing I really love about Riverfest is how diverse it is,” Carina says. “We've got arts projects, storytelling projects, citizen science, cleanup events, talks and history events. So it's really the full range of people's interests in the river.”

And it’s not just for people who are already involved with or passionate about the river. “There will definitely be something for everyone,” Carina says. “Maybe you're into science and you want to learn something you didn’t know, or maybe you just want to have a fun time getting out on the river with friends and family. Riverfest is for all people who are interested or curious about the Yarra-Birrarung, particularly if they want to get a bit more involved in understanding it and caring for it – even if it’s just picking up that lost tennis ball you see sitting in the gutter and putting it in the bin.”

More than anything, Carina hopes Riverfest can instil that same sense of wonder she gets whenever she is on the river to a whole new subset of Melburnians. “When you get close to the river, or you get more involved, your appreciation for how wonderful it is grows,” she says. “It’s such an amazing resource that we have here in Melbourne. I hope attendees come away with a renewed appreciation for how special it is to have such a beautiful, natural feature in our city, and all the life and biodiversity that it supports.

Riverfest 2024 runs from September 1 to 22. Check out the full program.

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