With Melbourne’s weather becoming hotter, drier, and less predictable, the city’s historically European-inspired landscapes are proving unsuitable for our changing climate. Drawing on First Nations knowledge and regenerative design principles, the panel explored how we can harness the intelligence of plants to cool, filter, connect and heal, recognising that nature has the capacity to regenerate both people and place.
As part of this year’s Melbourne Design Week program, Communications Collective and Collectivity Talks Founder and Director Genevieve Brannigan moderated a panel discussion exploring how we can reimagine our urban living landscapes.
Panellists:
– Bob Earl, Director, OCULUS
– Associate Professor Cathy Oke, Director at Melbourne Centre for Cities, University of Melbourne
– Associate Professor Claire Farrell, Director, Burnley Campus, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, University of Melbourne
– Dr Jen Mason, Council Member, Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council
Below are key insights from this conversation on transforming our cities into resilient, biodiverse environments that support ecological health and community wellbeing.
Dr Jen Mason, Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council: For First Nations people, ‘rewilding’ can carry complex and problematic connotations, as it can suggest the erasure of Indigenous land management practices. It implies returning land to a state that doesn’t acknowledge this long history of care. Instead of ‘rewilding’, terms like ‘caring for country’ are more appropriate, reflecting an intuitive approach to ecosystems. The focus should be on moving forward and understanding the sophistication of traditional systems.
Claire Farrell, University of Melbourne: From a plant scientist perspective, ‘rewilding’ is problematic because it’s unclear what we’re trying to return the urban environment to. We’ve changed the environment, and simply trying to reimpose pre-colonisation landscapes onto current urban forms, like concrete plazas that were once swamps, is inappropriate. ‘Urban greening’ is a preferred term that we use.
Cathy Oke, Melbourne Centre for Cities: One of the unique opportunities Australia has is to recognise and integrate lessons from the world’s longest living culture into our management practices, in collaboration with First Nations custodians and knowledge holders. While the aspiration to have ecosystems within cities is good, the term ‘rewilding’ fails to acknowledge the thousands of years of Indigenous land management before colonisation. ‘Renaturing’ is a preferred term, as this allows for a focus on Caring for Country in cities which acknowledges that nature thrived for thousands of years because of this depth of knowledge and intervention.
Dr Jen Mason, Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council: It’s crucial to consider how cities can grow in ways that respect and reflect Aboriginal cultural heritage, and to consult with First peoples from the get go – as soon as you get your idea – to determine what is appropriate. It’s not just about the Indigenous plants themselves, but the relational aspect and the intangible cultural stories that go along with them.
This includes considering where the development is positioned — is it disturbing a sensitive site, what are the totem species and dreaming stories, and understanding how different plants create habitats. For example the bidgee-widgee plant — often perceived as a weed is found in the riparian habitat of the fairy wren, where its prickles offer protection to the tiny bird. It’s also important to consider the environmental benefits, like fire retardant properties of certain native grasses. Traditional Owners have this knowledge.
Bob Earl, OCULUS: A significant shift has occurred in recent years, with increased demand for Indigenous designers and artists. However, this demand can present a barrier as these professionals can be overworked and spread quite thin. The industry must recognise this isn’t a ‘tick-the-box’ exercise, and must develop deep collaborative relationships. First Peoples need true support and allyship. Overcoming these barriers requires a big effort into breaking down the walls to build strong relationships between disciplines, including architecture, landscape architecture and ecology, that go beyond standard developer, authority and council talk. A major hurdle can be the ‘gatekeepers’ in various organisations who can create obstacles to progress.
Claire Farrell, University of Melbourne: In practice, my research into urban greening is about translating the academic, scientific knowledge into real-world results. One key project I’ve been working on is Woody Meadows, which is the naturalistic planting of Australian shrubs to improve appearance and function of low maintenance urban landscapes. While it’s been minimally published in academic literature – there’s about four papers out there – it’s one of the most impactful and successful projects I’ve worked on because it exists at the interface of research and practice. We’ve continuously refined the concept – learning what works, and what doesn’t, and adapted the approach accordingly. This process has shown me that the real-world application can overtake academic research. For example, plants that we assume wouldn’t survive in certain conditions – like rainforest plants from Queensland in dry, urban plazas – have sometimes surprised us and flourished. It’s this kind of ongoing, observation research that keeps me going, changing the focus from controlled, academic environments to messy, rewarding, real-life outcomes.
Claire Farrell, University of Melbourne: We often put plants in pigeonholes based on their origins – assuming a Queensland rainforest plant won’t survive in Melbourne’s dry western suburbs. But they surprise us constantly. Our experiments don’t always tell us as much as real-world observation does. Plants are like people – they’re more adaptable than we expect. This is why putting more plants out there in different landscapes teaches us so much more than controlled studies alone.
Claire Farrell, University of Melbourne: I’m quite hopeful about bottom-up change. As individuals, we have more ability to transform spaces than we think – whether it’s the verge outside your home, community gardens, or riverbank revegetation. Even cemetery volunteers like Helen Page have transformed glyphosate deserts into beautiful landscapes by persisting until someone says “keep doing it.” People don’t always know what they want until they see it, and beauty wins every time against our daily backdrop of straight lines and hard surfaces.
Cathy Oke, Melbourne Centre for Cities: The City of Melbourne is an exemplary city with how they work with science, research and knowledge to make decisions, particularly in urban greening. Documenting “A Decade of Nature” involved understanding the drivers and decision-making processes behind urban nature policies. A key take-home is the importance of agility and evolving thinking. The Urban Forest Strategy and the Urban Forest Precinct Work is amazing, but City of Melbourne’s evolution to a more ecological approach by bringing in science to make informed decisions is the really exciting story, and where we should be focusing efforts into the future.
Cathy Oke, Melbourne Centre for Cities: While there are voluntary initiatives like the Urban Forest Fund and the Green Factor Tool, that’s just scratching the surface, and mandatory requirements are needed to achieve greening at the desired scale. The C376 Sustainable Building Design Amendment, which aims to embed sustainability and greening rules in new developments, is still awaiting implementation.
Dr Jen Mason, Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council: Much knowledge was lost due to colonisation, and stories need to be pieced back together by Traditional Owners. Alongside oral knowledge we use academic research, but viewed through an Indigenous lens, to see important environmental indicators that non-Indigenous people may not necessarily identify as relevant. The partnership approach is important moving forward for addressing major issues like climate change. In my community we partnered with Regenerate Earth for a project involving young people on Country and used traditional methods to understand environmental changes. We examined practices like the regeneration of soil to show how culture reclaimed and shared knowledge can benefit all people. Working with women farmers in India, Regenerate Earth contrasted farms side by side – one using natural processes and one using chemical methods. When a cyclone came through a couple years ago, a farm with natural crops withstood a cyclone whereas the crop using chemical processes was flattened. It also showed significant temperature differences, highlighting how greening is really beneficial for bringing the temperature down. While funding and programs are available in urban areas with university support, regional areas often lack the same opportunities.
Cathy Oke, Melbourne Centre for Cities: The University of Melbourne has examples, like the new Student Precinct, which involved understanding the original plants along Bouverie Creek and working with First Nations collaborators and knowledge custodians. The City of Melbourne’s approach to nature has evolved from the urban forest approach, to including ‘Caring for Country’ principles, working with First Nations peoples, and actively thinking about how to bring practices like cultural burning into city parks. With collaboration and testing, knowledge is growing, and genuine Indigenous led or co lead approaches to re-naturing can happen.
Cathy Oke, Melbourne Centre for Cities: The Playbook for Urban Biodiversity was all about breaking down barriers and dispelling myths. It came from a place of frustration of the lack of nature and greening in cities, despite the thousands of university papers written about this and real intent from many many practitioners. The seven myths we discuss are: 1. Small patches don’t matter; 2. Any green will do; 3. Green infrastructure will solve the biodiversity crisis; 4. Nature will look after itself; 5. Nature doesn’t belong in the city; 6. People won’t like it; and 7. We can’t afford it. The Playbook presents these myths and dispels them, offering various arguments and solutions (plays) at local, national, and global scales, based on knowledge gathered from practitioners like architects, designers, policy makers and engineers. The process was messy but fun, and shows we only get solutions if we actually stop working in silos and find the time and space to truly collaborate across disciplinary and practice divides.
Bob Earl, OCULUS: Both projects taught me that persistence is crucial – you often become the last person standing as teams change around you. And the reality we work in is challenging — we’re working mostly on structure, on concrete and piles, within tight budgets and developer pressures. Having said this, what I love is that the landscape changes and evolves over time — trees get bigger and the landscape grows in, it gets better with age. Our approach has certainly evolved over time, and in current and new projects, we insist on things like ensuring that for landscaping there is a metre and a half of soil everywhere from day one, as we work in partnership with structural engineers to accommodate proper growing medium.
Bob Earl, OCULUS: Policy is necessary to mandate things that are currently optional from the very outset of projects — such as the appropriate soil depth. Developers need to plan structural systems that can handle the weight of wet soil and living landscapes. It can’t be voluntary anymore. The City of Melbourne is getting stronger with these requirements, but it needs to be non-negotiable. Design should come from the site and place, not style — reinforcing history and context while making Melbourne distinctly Melbourne through landscape, architecture, and integrated design.
Dr Jen Mason, Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council: My hope and aspirations is to truly re-green our Country, remove damaging introduced species, and start small, even in concrete backyards, as soil itself can be regenerated. Consider tangible and intangible Aboriginal cultural heritage in every space.
Bob Earl, Oculus: Break down all the walls we possibly can to enable true and real collaboration, as this produces amazing work.
Cathy Oke, Melbourne Centre for Cities: Ditto to breaking down walls, and add the importance of listening – to Country, to people, and to diverse views – as a key to collaboration.
