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Seeing the rivers for the trees

By Glenn Walker - posted Monday, 26 October 2009


While Queensland’s Wild Rivers initiative has attracted criticism recently, the debates have failed to focus on the facts or on why river protection is so important.

Queensland is lucky to retain some of the world’s healthiest natural river systems. They underpin regional economies and support unique and diverse wildlife. Free of dams, weirs, polluting irrigation schemes and industrial development, the natural and cultural values of these rivers remain largely intact.

River systems such as these are increasingly rare. Many of the world’s major rivers are severely degraded or on the brink of collapse. These rivers are plagued with environmental problems caused by dams, polluting irrigated agriculture, mass water diversions, destructive mines, dramatic loss of wildlife and fish, and encroaching invasive weeds and pests.

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In Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin is our own stark example of river management gone terribly wrong. In the early 1990s, events like the massive algal blooms in the Darling River and the escalating problem of salinity and erosion heightened the public’s awareness of the need to better protect precious river systems. More recent exposure of the effects of over-utlisation of Murray-Darling water resources, has added political impetus for fundamental national reforms about the way we manage rivers and waterways.

It is within this early period of public awakening that the Wild Rivers framework was born. In 1992, led by the Australian Heritage Commission, the Federal Government commenced the Wild Rivers Project. The Commission undertook a national assessment of Australia’s rivers, and identified pressures on wild rivers and recommended management principles for maintaining wild river values and a draft Code of Management.

Motivated by disastrous irrigation developments like the colossal Cubbie Station cotton farm in southern Queensland and the lack of regulatory protection afforded to Queensland’s free flowing rivers, the Wilderness Society and other conservation groups initiated a campaign in the early 2000s to seek government action around a Wild Rivers framework. In 2004, former Premier Peter Beattie announced his intention to protect 19 river systems in Queensland by creating a stand-alone Wild Rivers Act.

Following Beattie’s re-election, the Wild Rivers Act was passed in 2005. The legislation enables the Queensland Government to protect healthy river basins through a “wild river declaration”, following public nomination and consultation processes. A declaration is akin to a planning mechanism - it regulates new developments in defined wild river areas, setting a baseline for ecologically sustainable development.

This effectively means that big developments like dams, using the water for intensive irrigation and strip mining in the catchments is kept out of these rivers. At the same time, a declaration supports the continuation of existing activities, including grazing and fishing, as well as the establishment of smaller scale commercial uses, eco-tourism, new outstation developments and other sustainable activities.

In 2007, the government initiated negotiations, involving Noel Pearson and other Cape York Indigenous advocates and The Wilderness Society, on legislation to support return of lands to traditional owners and conservation outcomes, a process to support a World Heritage nomination, and measures to support economic opportunities for Cape York Indigenous communities.

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As a result the government amended the Wild Rivers Act to put the protection of Native Title rights and interests beyond doubt and extended water rights to Indigenous communities. Despite a vicious campaign currently suggesting otherwise, this means that cultural practices as well as traditional hunting and fishing activities are not restricted, and for the first time in Australia, Wild River declarations also provide a special water reserve specifically for Indigenous economic and social use.

Queensland’s Wild Rivers legislation is thus a groundbreaking achievement. It is a leading initiative in Australia’s urgent quest to reform the way we go about managing our rivers and water resources, while supporting and empowering local communities to look after their rivers. Through advocacy from the Wilderness Society, the Queensland government has initiated a program to employ 100 Indigenous rangers to manage ongoing threats to wild rivers such as invasive weeds and feral animals.

The Queensland government officially declared the first Wild Rivers under the legislation in 2006. These rivers were Settlement Creek, Morning Inlet, and the Gregory and Staaten Rivers, all located in the Gulf of Carpentaria, as well as the waterways of Fraser and Hinchinbrook Islands. Despite serious attempts by the mining industry, and peak agricultural groups to stop this from happening, the Wilderness Society formed a strong alliance with the Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation and Traditional Owners in the Gulf Country to ensure that the river protection measures were passed.

After years of consultation and negotiation with Indigenous and conservation representatives, the Queensland government announced in mid 2008 its intention to protect the first three river systems on Cape York Peninsula - the Archer, Stewart and Lockhart River Basins. The subsequent Wild River declarations in April 2009, which followed considerable further community consultation, included the protection of the stunning Aurukun wetlands from sand and bauxite mining threats, which previously had no form of protection despite their immense natural and cultural values.

Regrettably, these recent declarations have triggered the latest chapter in an extraordinary four-year anti-wild rivers campaign, led by Noel Pearson, and supported whole-heartedly by Howard stalwart Senator Bill Heffernan and The Australian newspaper, with newer recruits such as Property Rights Australia and Piers Ackerman.

With a predictable chorus of “dirty greenie deals”, and claims that this is about ”locking up rivers” and the land, and denying Indigenous people economic opportunities, the campaign has been built on the deliberate spreading of public misinformation, creation of community fear, and a smearing of The Wilderness Society and conservationists.

Examples here include the distribution of materials by Pearson’s “Give Us a Go” campaign to Cape York communities that claim Wild Rivers will lead to the banning of traditional hunting and fishing; and the false accusation that the Wilderness Society somehow stymied the consultation process with Traditional Owners. Many more instances of misinformation, deception and fear-mongering as well an illustration of the many supportive Indigenous voices on wild rivers can be found at www.giveusabreak.org.au.

Through the fog of the imbalanced Wild Rivers public argument, those closely attuned to the global environmental calamity we all face see the breakthrough and significance of the initiative. Based on so many mistakes in the past, the Wild Rivers initiative seeks to guide us all in terms of what future development is appropriate on our free-flowing rivers, and what sort of legacy we will leave for present and future generations.

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About the Author

Glenn Walker is the Wild Rivers Campaigner for The Wilderness Society (Queensland).

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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