Taking Root in Barkers Creek premiered in August 2025 as a big screen experience at the heart of an event made for local environmental groups and supporters.

Co-hosted by the Barkers Creek Landcare and Wildlife Group and Connecting Country, the event was a ‘listening in’ followed by supper and a panel conversation about how we might work better together - linking refugia and connecting the patchwork of care across the natural environments of this shire.

Read about the event on Kyla’s Substack - Making Media in a Cricis

Join a Sunday working bee near Castlemaine, planting and weeding with Kyla Brettle as she traces the impact of the 1850s Victorian gold rush on the 30 year story of the Barkers Creek Landcare & Wildlife Group.

Listen in as Kyla unearths a bigger story about changing community attitudes towards the natural environment and a group determined to do more than weed in circles as the bush dies around them.

There is a ‘Plan’ brewing to take action at the bushland reserve in Barkers Creek and restore health to the landscape from the subsoil up…

Featuring:

Lois Denham, Nico Pye, Phil Munari, Cath Jolly, Sunny Pearson, Arlo Morris, Peter Sansom, Paul Foreman, Marg Ollerton, Boxer Cole, Lis Johnson, Tony Cormack, Ffion Morris, Lou Marsal, Daryl Colless, Brian Morris, Sally Polmear, Brian Walters, Nick Lewis, Karyn Maguire and Uncle Rick Nelson

Credits

Presenter/Producer/Editor/Recordist Kyla Brettle
Original Music, Rob Law
Photography, Carmen Bunting
Audio Mix, Brian Morris
Visual Design, Elizabeth Geddes

Thanks to Advice and Support from Cassia Read, Lori Arthur, Karyn McGuire, Cath Jolly.

Commissioned by Barkers Creek Landcare and Wildlife Group as part of a 2024 Victorian Landcare Grant