The PPWCMA's involvement in the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games

A feature of the Victorian Government’s successful bid to host the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games was its commitment to undertake a large-scale, strategic tree-planting project so that staging the Games achieves a carbon neutral impact on the environment.

The Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, and the Department of Victorian Communities proposed that this project be co-ordinated by a coalition of Victorian Catchment Management Authorities, Greening Australia Victoria and Landcare Australia Limited.

As a key partner in the coalition, Port Phillip and Westernport Catchment Management Authority (PPWCMA) in June 2004 accepted the lead role of coordinating and managing this project.

Total State Government funding for the project was $1.1 million. At an average of 1,000 trees planted per hectare – the project objective was to plant up to 500 hectares over half a million locally indigenous trees and shrubs established at strategic sites across Victoria before the Games in March 2006. One key planting site was the Grow West site in the Rowsley Valley and Pentland Hills area, near Bacchus Marsh, west of Melbourne.

The PPWCMA coordinated the planting of 170,000 trees at Grow West, while other Victorian Catchment Management Authorities coordinated plantings at sites in their respective regions.

The PPWCMA also provided statewide project management with responsibility for reporting to a Steering Committee on outcomes, and financial management for the project.

Project sites were chosen that provided strategic benefits such as linking or buffering remnants and adding to existing revegetation projects in priority areas. Sites selected also provided multiple benefits such as landscape scale weed control, salinity mitigation, landscape creation, biodiversity enhancement and water quality protection.

Click here to link to the PPWCMA Major Projects