UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Creating protected spaces for regenerative development: lessons from the swimmable Birrarung/ Yarra river initiative, Melbourne, Australia

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.1007/s11625-026-01799-8

Authors

Loretta Bellato · Niki Frantzeskaki · Christian Andi Nygaard

Reported year

2026

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:19:10.137999+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:19:10.137999+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Swinburne University of Technology · UNSW Sydney · Utrecht University

Documentary abstract — original language

Abstract Rivers are increasingly becoming sites of sustainability transformation. In some cases, legal mechanisms recognise them as legal persons and living entities. Consequently, new niches are being created that can address the health of rivers and their communities. However, niche creation requires protected spaces to nurture and strengthen new ways of doing, thinking, and organising. In urban settings, this translates to reversing existing regime selection outcomes in practice. This paper analyses how regenerative thinking contributed to conceptualising and developing a protected space and guided the development of an envisioned river system transformation. Regenerative development approaches recognise rivers as living beings and active agents in the transformations of social-ecological systems. Few regenerative initiatives have been applied to urban contexts, and even fewer have been empirically studied. Action research and case study methodologies are applied to the Swimmable Birrarung / Yarra River by 2030 (SB20130) initiative, located in Melbourne, Australia. The ways that the regenerative paradigm can support niche creation for conceptualising urban river system transformations are discussed. The study found that new narratives, capabilities and partnerships are needed to apply regenerative approaches to niche creation. We demonstrate that when centring on place and embracing the regenerative approach, the river (Birrarung) itself, as a shield, was instrumental in establishing a protected space. Place also provides a means of bridging Indigenous, sustainability and regenerative theories and practice approaches. A framework is proposed for creating and evolving niches from a regenerative paradigm perspective.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W7128193994

DOI

10.1007/s11625-026-01799-8

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Jurisdictions studied — explicit sources

AU

Natural entities mentioned

River

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-026-01799-8
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W7128193994

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

• openalex:w1564977581 · CITES
• openalex:w1922359749 · CITES
• openalex:w2087617498 · CITES
• openalex:w2089973933 · CITES
• openalex:w2091054573 · CITES
• openalex:w2099330597 · CITES
• openalex:w2146706569 · CITES
• openalex:w2150176342 · CITES
• openalex:w2180863964 · CITES
• openalex:w2235509840 · CITES
• openalex:w2513694543 · CITES
• openalex:w2531563946 · CITES
• openalex:w2788353431 · CITES
• openalex:w2800039016 · CITES
• The changing face of river management in Victoria: The Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act 2017 (Vic) · CITES
• openalex:w2983239262 · CITES
• openalex:w3003899057 · CITES
• openalex:w3004244574 · CITES
• openalex:w3084509585 · CITES
• openalex:w3089897557 · CITES

0 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Detected scholarly publication

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.