By Jonty Ralphsmith
Children at Tirhatuan Park on Thursday 22 April had a fun end to the school holidays.
For the first time since 2019, City of Greater Dandenong have run the Discover Dandenong Creek Festival in conjunction with Living Links.
Despite being an overcast day, stallholders were positive about the turnout and spread the message about the significance of the environment and why it requires protecting.
Among the organisations in attendance were the Greater Dandenong Environment Group (GDEG), Native Fish Victoria and the Marine Mammal Foundation, each educating about different elements of the ecosystem and sustainability.
GDEG used water from nearby waterways to attract children to its stall where they could search for organisms and examine what animals they could see.
“We’re very conscious of needing to the next group of children to be interested in our environment, what our rivers are, how healthy they are and what we can do to keep them healthy and what makes them not so,” Dorothea Kassell from GDEG said.
“We do that just to get a level of interest from all age groups but especially the children – they’re the children that are going to look after these places.”
The Marine Mammal Foundation exhibited rubbish collected from Port Philip Bay to contextualise the level of pollution ending up in oceans in an interactive sense.
“We’re able to demonstrate how litter in our local communities that maybe geographically are disconnected from marine environments can harm dolphins and whales and seals so it’s important to build the connection between terrestrial communities and marine environments.
“Everyone loves dolphins which is really beneficial for us but it’s really great to see such a strong local and community awareness and passion to look after where they live and by extension those wider environments,” Matt Montemurro from the foundation said.
Other highlights included a free barbecue put on by the Lions Club of Dandenong, a performance by the Koori Youth Will Shake Spears Dance Group and activities with park rangers.
Councillors Rhonda Garad and Bob Milkovic were both in attendance.
