Dear Advisory Committee, I Am a Second Generation Farmer on The

Dear Advisory Committee,

I am a second generation farmer on the Yarra river and Little Yarra river flats, I have grazed cattle and ran extensive vegetable growing operations on the floodplains of the Yarra and Little Yarra rivers, presently I operate an agri-tourist enterprise abutting the Little Yarra river. I am a committee member of the recently formed Yarra Waterways Group. The YWG includes 80+ landowners of properties that abut the Yarra, Little Yarra, Badger creek and Britannia creek, these properties have been included in the recently expanded State Emblems Conservation Area as part of the V.E.A.C. “Yellingbo Investigation”.

I see parallels between the “Yellingbo Investigation” and the “Yarra River Protection Act”, as a long- time resident/landowner in the Upper Yarra region, I would like to give you the local landowners perspective of the “Yellingbo Investigation” and request please do not to make the same mistakes with the Yarra River Protection Act.

The conservation efforts in the Yellingbo Nature Reserve(protecting and conserving some of our state emblems) is well recognised in our local community. The VEAC decided to go way beyond the original focus area(Yellingbo Nature Reserve) and re-claim the crown land river reserves in our regions main agricultural/horticultural, recreation/lifestyle areas. The public consultation process of the investigation was constructed in such a way that it missed having input from the directly affected landowners on the above mentioned streams.

It must be noted at this stage that the Crown river reserves are in many areas much wider than the traditional riparian strips of 20-30 metres, many of these corridors range from 50-140 metres in width accounting for wide swathes of our most productive agricultural/horticultural land to be revegetated with indigenous native plants. The VEAC objective appears to be to have continuous interconnecting corridors of native vegetation for habitat reasons, river health and also for management objectives in what is proposed to be one large State Park run by Parks Victoria after September 2018.

Let me explain a common perception by many of the affected landowners:-

# Affected landowners not consulted/long-term local knowledge and experience not considered. #No consideration for the care landowners have given to these reserves/over 100 years. #Wind direction combined with volatile native vegetation corridors connecting the towns/residential areas/then ultimately the surrounding State Forests is creating a massive fire risk in an already vulnerable region. #Loss of access to the river/massive loss to some properties of the best farmland/loss of tourist amenity of the area.

The consultation process mainly engaged government authorities and narrow focussed interest groups. We now have a situation with the government trying to implement something that has very strong landowner/community resistance.

Now the Yarra River Protection Act discussion paper and reference group report make mention of the tradition owners of the Yarra river region, the Wurundjeri Aboriginal people, who were basically driven out of the river environs by white settlement. I think it would be fair to say the present day Wurundjeri people have little practical connection to the riparian areas of the Yarra system other than Coranderrk, and other sites of cultural significance. Their connection is a spiritual one because their ancestors occupied this region.

Please don’t treat the present custodians(over 100 years) of the riparian areas of the Yarra system— the landowners/Crown land river reserve licence holders with the same disregard and disrespect that was afforded to the Wurundjeri people on white settlement.

I request that the consultation process be extended and all the abutting landowners from Warrandyte to the Upper Yarra Dam be contacted by direct letter to participate in the consultation process. There is much to consider in this important proposal, there has been insufficient notice and not enough time for response.

Hoping you give consideration to the above,

Geoff Cochrane