By Marcus Uhe
Anthony Bigelow has won the first Knox City Council Sustainability Award for his service and commitment to the Dandenong Creek.
Bigelow is a long-term committee member for The First Friends of Dandenong Creek (FFDC) and currently serves as President of the group.
The Dandenong Creek flows through Dandenong North’s Tirhatuan Park, Eneavour Hills and Doveton on its route between the foot of Mount Dandenong at Olinda to the Patterson River and into Port Phillip Bay.
In 2021 FFDC highlighted the plight of the creek’s short-finned eel population, lobbying for grants to fund researches from Bio2Lab to monitor the water quality of the creek after the fish and eel population took a substantial hit in 2017 due to a pollution event that saw the water contaminated.
FFDC also put together a short video on the eels’ importance to indigenous culture and the region.
Mr Bigelow said that the recognition was a great reward for a long period of advocacy.
“We’ve been trying to highlight the plight of the eels and pollution for years,” Mr Bigelow said. “It’s incredibly humbling that the group has been recognised for this.
“We’re very fortunate that we have such a lot of very passionate and clever people that want to try and improve the area.”
The creek plays home to a range of animals and plants including sugar gliders, snakes, frogs and fish, and manna gum trees, tasman flax-lily’s and river red gum trees.
The 150-member group of volunteers work to maintain the health of the native flora and fauna in the area and foster an appreciation of the creek’s history and environmental significance, in consultation with Melbourne Water, local indigenous communities, and Knox City Council.
Activities undertaken by the group include tree-planting days, weed control, reporting pollution and safety hazards, lobbying authorities for grants and maintaining noticeboards along the creek.
Preserving a connection to Indigenous culture and heritage is of particular significance to the group, particularly the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung people who Mr Bigelow considers “the first environmentalists”.
“When you don’t have local knowledge about country passed down, there’s a break in that legacy and indepth knowledge,” Mr Bigelow said. “(FFDC) wants to nurture it.”
FFDC were also recognised in the Premier’s 2021 Sustainability Awards as a Community Champion for their work highlighting the eels’ story.
To view their video on the Eels, head to youtube.com/watch?v=umZlNGATy0E&t=319s
