Project video

Unified Stewardship for Dromana Arthurs Seat Escarpment, Victoria

Australia
Community, Education, Conservation
RE
Regenerating Mornington Peninsula
Victoria, Australia
Community Group

Regenerating Mornington Peninsula is a community-led, place-sourced initiative supporting regeneration across the Mornington Peninsula by co-creating a bioregional learning and research centre. We began because many people love this place, but care for land, water, biodiversity, culture and community is fragmented among groups, agencies, landholders, businesses and volunteers. Our role is to make this ecosystem of care visible, connected, celebrated and better supported as a living system. We convene living labs, roundtables, mapping, walks, stories and immersive cultural and creative experiences, building on existing care. Over the past year, our focus has been the Dromana Arthurs Seat Escarpment, where local stewards and stakeholders have begun shaping a shared resilience plan towards an integrated management plan. Our next step is to widen the circle and explore ways to recognise, resource and connect community stewardship with long-term governance through regenerative funding.

Project story

Dromana Arthurs Seat Escarpment: A Living System Worth Protecting

We began this work because we could see how deeply people love the Mornington Peninsula, how much care already exists here, and how fragmented and under-supported that care often is.

Imagine a place where bushland meets flowing water, wildlife moves through habitat corridors, and stories continue to emerge. Rising as the highest point of the Peninsula, the Dromana Arthurs Seat Escarpment is an approximately 573-hectare living landscape that supports biodiversity, tourism, recreation, livelihoods, and our connection to land, water, and life. This is Bunurong Country, on the unceded lands and waters of the Bunurong People of the Kulin Nation.

Yet this ecosystem faces fragmented care. Responsibility is shared across community groups, First Nations custodians, landowners and managers, businesses and government agencies. Many people care deeply, but the system is not yet working in harmony. Too often, care for this place becomes reactive, contested or under-resourced, rather than coordinated, long-term and regenerative.

From June 2026 to May 2027, this stage will widen the circle of stewardship and move the work toward shared governance, integrated management and regenerative funding.

We will build stronger relationships among community, First Nations representatives, landowners and managers, businesses, youth, researchers, and government stakeholders through mapping, dialogue, immersive experiences, and shared stewardship planning. We will explore how public land, private land, quarry land, township edges, tourism, water care and habitat corridors can be regenerated together over time.

Your support funds project coordination, paid First Nations guidance, stakeholder engagement, mapping, immersive learning, governance and funding exploration, and a community priorities paper for government.

Help us transform reactive, contested and under-resourced care into intergenerational collective action, so the Dromana Arthurs Seat Escarpment can be cared for now and for generations to come.

Project updates

Team

TW
Tomi WinfreeRegenerating Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia

Location

Australia