This September, thousands of Melburnians will come together to celebrate the second-ever Birrarung Riverfest – a three-week-long 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. 

With global attention on the Paris Olympics (and a swimmable Seine river), the newly launched Swimmable Cities Charter aims to harness this momentum for the good of our global rivers. Swimmable Birrarung Lead Convenor Charity Mosienyane explains. 

If we want the Swimmable Birrarung to be realised, we need a couple of things: a shared, collaborative vision and some damn good stories. Swimmable Birrarung Lead Convenor, Charity Mosienyane, shares two recent reflections around communications and community that she has been hearing time and time again within the broader Birrarung collaborator ecosystem.

We talk a lot about the vision for a Swimmable Birrarung. But what does the full extent of this vision look like? Is getting in the water enough? (hint no). Nicole dives into the different ways in which ‘swimmable’ could come to life over the next few years (and decades).

This year marks the tenth anniversary of a group of actors coming together to make Sydney’s Parramatta River swimmable again. Swimmable Birrarung Lead Convenor Charity Mosienyane spoke with one of the Parramatta project’s leads, Sarah Holland-Clift, about what our own river-healing initiative could learn from this Sydney success story. 

ICYMI: the Swimmable Birrarung project recently found itself in the throes of a national media frenzy. From breakfast television to the pages of national mastheads – this community-led project was thrust into the spotlight with all the excitement, speculation and skepticism that comes with it. So how did we get here, and what does it all mean? 

A Swimmable Birrarung by 2030 might be Wildly Ambitious, but look a little further afield and you’ll find plenty of cities that have developed strong urban swimming cultures, despite the (systemic) odds. 

Since forming in 2020, Regen Melbourne and a committed team of researchers, environmental advocates, Indigenous elders, engineers, entrepreneurs and environmentalists have been hatching a plan to make Melbourne’s Birrarung (Yarra) River swimmable. Now they’re ready to put all that research into action.