By Renee Wood
Inspired by her love of the Yarra River, Karin Traeger is combining her passions for running and the river by taking on the mighty feat of running the river’s length to raise awareness for climate action.
The Yarra Riverkeeper CEO has set herself the challenge of running 280km along the Yarra River from where it begins to where it meets the sea.
Ms Traeger will start the journey on 25 September, World Rivers Day, and will run the course over six days as a challenge to raise $100,000 for the organisation.
Yarra Riverkeeper Association advocates for the waterway and undertakes many projects to educate, remove pollution and rejuvenate wildlife habitat.
Ms Traeger has been running as a hobby for the past eight years and has been involved in ultramarathons, running 100km being her greatest distance.
Two years ago, Ms Traeger started planning for the 280km run after being inspired during lockdowns to bring awareness to the river in her own way.
“Being in lockdown a lot of people connected to the river – I spent lots of time running along the river and that inspired me to use that running format to express we are actually running out of time.”
Ms Traeger hopes she will inspire others to take action and be more creative in the campaigning sector.
“You don’t have to be an environmental activist to create change – if you’re a runner, you can just pick up a piece of litter during your run, and that’s also pretty valuable.
“I really look forward to bringing attention to the catchment that we have an amazing waterway. We have beautiful tributaries…”
The run will start near the Thompson and Yarra catchments where the Yarra River begins and will go down through Reefton, Redwood Forest, Warburton, Healesville all the way to end at the Westgate Park.
The longest run will be on day one for 73 kilometres, other days will be around 35-42ks.
Ms Traeger aims to show the connection from the Upper Yarra to the sea and urges policy makers and governments to invest in it’s health.
“Some 70 per cent of your drinking water comes from the Yarra and that’s how critical it is to make sure that its well looked after.
“You have a lot of threatened species living in the catchment …what’s good for the Yarra is good for everyone and that’s something that has to be taken into consideration within the next elections, even the future use of the water itself.”
For more information or to donate visit https://www.pozible.com/project/run-the-riverkeeper
