Walking Together – Balak Kalik Manya – May 2021 update

Posted on 12 May, 2021 by Ivan

We received an exciting update from Harley Douglas, project manager at Djandak, regarding their Walking Together – Balak Kalik Manya Project. This is a four-year project committed to writing site-specific management plans for two sites within Dja Dja Wurrung Country: Kalimna Park in Castlemaine and Wildflower Drive in Bendigo VIC. Both sites were selected because of their proximity to growing townships and the increasing pressures of urbanisation slowly encroaching closer and closer to these park boundaries.

After a lot of stakeholder engagement, the draft management plans are now ready for community review and Djandak are seeking feedback. Please read on for details from Harley.

Dam and riparian vegetation at Wildflower Drive (photo by Djandak)

Walking Together- Balak Kalik Manya – Newsletter Update

The Walking Together- Balak Kalik Manya Project is a four-year project committed to writing site-specific management plans for two sites within Dja Dja Wurrung Country; Kalimna Park in Castlemaine and Wildflower Drive in Bendigo. Both sites were selected due to their proximity to growing townships and the increasing pressures of urbanisation encroaching both park boundaries. The project is exploring how we can increase community connection with nature, how to improve visitation rates and encourage appropriate use of these sites, all while maintaining and improving biodiversity. The project will promote Djaara employment and assist in Djaara reconnecting with traditional practices of land management. For more information on the project please see this short video.

Since workshopping our management plans with Djaara members, community members, and government stakeholders, our respective management plans for Kalimna Park and Wildflower Drive have now reached a draft phase and are ready for review and comments by impassioned stakeholders. Djandak are seeking your feedback as a user of either park who can provide valued subjective knowledge that we might not have considered within our current draft plans.

The draft management plans will be housed on Djandak’s webpage for a few weeks before taking both plans offline to revise and incorporate the relevant comments and suggestions. Djandak will then finalise the management plans, including design elements, and place back on our website for people to view permanently.

Here is the link to our webpage and the Walking Together- Balak Kalik Manya section- http://djandak.com.au/projects/walking-together-balak-kalik-manya

Djandak are aware of the many user groups and community that frequent our parks and the different values that each of us have do not always align perfectly. For this reason, Djandak asks that all comments are constructive in their manner and appropriately worded. Any comments that are perceived as derogatory or unconstructive will not be considered for the final management plan.

All comments can be provided either by downloading and commenting directly into the document (using the comment function in Adobe) and sending back through to myself, or provide comments in an email to me with relevant sections clearly labelled (e.g. ‘Value 7- I think that…’, or ‘Strategy 29- …’).

Please feel free to redistribute the link to Djandak’s webpage and our management plans amongst other interested Djaara and community members, the more people we have commenting on our plan the more representative the plan will be of what the community and Djaara aspire our parks to look and feel.

Thank you,

Harley Douglas
DDW Member
Project Manager- Dja Dja Wurrung Enterprises Trading as Djandak
P: 5444 2888
E: harley.douglas@djadjawurrung.com.au