Are you interested in joining us in our campaign to restore environmental flows and Indigenous water rights in the Murray-Darling?
Information session on Wednesday 29th September.
Traditional Owners and the environment have been dispossessed of water in the Murray-Darling Basin, causing ongoing degradation to the landscape, plants and animals and preventing Traditional Owners from carrying out cultural obligations to care for country. Ecological catastrophe is striking the Basin’s remaining natural ecosystems from the Coorong to the vast river red gum forests of the Riverina.
The current flooding in northern Victoria brings a brief reprieve to our parched rivers and wetlands, but it not an end to their woes. Water authorities are diverting as much water as is physically possible into water storages for use by irrigators later in the season. As a result, these floods will be less extensive and last for a shorter time than they would otherwise. Tens of thousands of waterbirds will setup nests but many of them will have to abandon their young when the floodwaters recede unnaturally quickly. Perhaps more damaging is the gradual degradation occuring in drier years. In years where there used be small-to-medium floods there are no floods at all, and rivers are artifically reduced to a trickle.
Over the coming decade we have a real opportunity – and probably our last – to turn this around. After years of campaigning by Traditional Owners and conservationists, the Commonwealth government is driving a massive reform process that should see the Basin’s water managed on an ecologically sustainable basis for the first time since colonisation.
But many barriers remain, at their foremost the failure of the Australian community to grapple with the historic theft of Indigenous water.
In the next stage of our campaign, the Barmah-Millewa Collective will be working with Traditional Owners and local communities to build support for environmental and Indigenous water rights, so that throughout the Murray-Darling communities thrive, biodiversity flourishes and our rivers are clean and healthy.
We would like you to join with us in doing this work. We are looking for committed volunteers, connected cyberactivists, people to attend our community events… there are many ways you can be a part of the campaign. To get the ball rolling we’re holding an information night for volunteers and supporters on Wednesday 29th September and we'd love it if you came along. Please see below for details.
Come and hear about the campaign - Wednesday 29th September
Come and hear about our new campaign campaign to restore environmental flows and Indigenous water rights in the Murray-Darling, and how you can be involved.
Wednesday 29th September
6:30 – 7:30 pm
Friends of the Earth Organic Café
312 Smith St
Collingwood 3066
RSVP is appreciated:Â [email protected]
- so we can make sure there’s enough food to snack on.