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. 

Between the cost of living, climate change, COVID, and conflict, the deep flaws and inequities in our food systems have been laid bare. In her new role as Regen Melbourne’s Food Systems Lead, Dheepa Jeyapalan reflects on the challenges and opportunities ahead of us as we collaborate to create a fairer and more regenerative food system for our city.

Caroline Sanz-Veitch shares the maturing of Participatory Melbourne into cross-cutting work focused on New Urban Governance (aka how we enable better relationships between communities and our democratic systems). Caro reflects on the insights from the last year and what led us to the realisation that we must pave a new path through the lens of participation as an enabling condition, not a stand-alone project.

Last week RM held a Design Forum! The provocation to the room was: How do we catalyse a wave of regenerative streets in Greater Melbourne? Regen Streets Lead Convenor Nina Sharpe shares her takeaways below.

Having recently returned from Bhutan, the country famous for Gross National Happiness, Director of Research Alison Whitten shares her reflections on three key concepts we might apply to Melbourne’s regeneration: sufficiency, spirituality and new approaches to systemic measurement.

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.

How do we spot and disrupt the repeated patterns that constantly show up when trying to create deep change in our streets? This question, and many others, are front of mind for Regen Streets lead convenor Nina Sharpe during the project’s sensemaking process.