Project overview

The Yarra River is Melbourne’s lifeblood. It is a tourist icon, indelibly linked to the city’s history and plays an important role in the lifestyle of the Melbourne people and the livability of the city.

But the Yarra River and valley from which it flows are under threat and need significant action to ensure their future. Yarra4Life (Y4L) is an ambitious environmental program that aims to minimise the threats to the river and its important rural headwater, the Yarra Valley.

Yarra4Life has four specific goals (as follows) focusing on land and water improvement, protecting the endangered Helmeted Honeyeater, improving the Yarra Valley as an enjoyable recreational space and destination and maximising the economic viability of the Yarra Valley.

The recent ABC Stateline story examined the Lifecycle aspect of Yarra4Life. See the movie and transcript here. Movie Courtesy ABC Stateline.

The Location

Y4L focuses on 40,000 hectares of picturesque Yarra Valley countryside between Lilydale, Gembrook and Woori Yallock.
The Yarra Valley generates about a billion dollars each year from its economic mainstays of agriculture and tourism.

It also has very high biodiversity values, contains the last remaining population of Victoria’s endangered bird emblem the Helmeted Honeyeater and is an important rural headwater of the Yarra River.

Click here for a large scale map.

Why investment is needed

Despite much progress by government, industry and community groups, the Yarra needs more attention. Government investment is not enough and there is an urgent need to increase the scale, magnitude and effectiveness of environmental works.

Yarra4Life has created opportunities for private industry to join government investment to improve to viability of the Yarra’s environment. The investment opportunities focus on three key benefits: environmental impacts such as revegetation and carbon minimisation, corporate social responsibility benefits and community and economic benefits.

Treehouse is one of our newest partners. Tree House are specialists in secure document destruction and office paper recycling, with highly sophisticated systems and absolutely secure processes. Treehouse's contribution will help protect habitat for our endangred species including the Helmeted Honeyeater. See further information here about our partnership with Treehouse

Visit the opportunities page to see how our partnerships are working

Opportunities include

Yarra4Life is a flexible project that has a range of opportunities. The flexibility of the projects enables the package to be tailored to meet the individual needs of your company. This may be a targeted campaign to meet the corporate social responsibility requirements of your company or something as simple as a tree planting day. Speak with Greg Milne for more information.

Click to view the brochure