Murray Darling Basin – National Parks Association of NSW

Murray Darling Fish Kills – an environmental catastrophe

Posted by NPA NSWon May 31, 2019in Winter 2019Leave a comment

^{Dr Frank Gleason}

The recent and massive death of fish in the Murray-Darling Basin caused by harmful algal blooms is an environmental catastrophe.

Lessons from the Murray-Darling disaster run deeper than water

Posted by NPA NSWon March 4, 2019in Autumn 2019Leave a comment

Environmental mismanagement runs deeper than the ecological tragedy gripping the Murray-Darling Basin. Recent policy decisions around native forest logging in NSW follow the same pattern of ignoring science and favouring extractive industry over the public interest, writes Dr Oisín Sweeney

World Wetlands Day a stark reminder of water failings

Posted by NPA NSWon February 2, 2019January 31, 2019in Media ReleasesLeave a comment

No wetlands, no water, no fish, no future: who’s going to sort out the mess?

World Wetlands Day is celebrated internationally each year on 2 February. It marks the anniversary of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Convention) in Ramsar, Iran, on 2 February 1971. This year the theme is wetlands and climate change and in Australia it could be not timelier.

Protecting the environment’s water in the Murray-Darling Basin

Posted by NPA NSWon November 16, 2018November 28, 2018in Summer 2018Leave a comment

^{Bill Johnson, River Ecologist and former Water Manager with the Murray Darling Basin Commission}

For a few years in the 1990’s the NSW water agency had on display, in the foyer of its offices in Parramatta, a statue celebrating tampering with irrigation meters and, by association, water theft. Sculpted by the Department’s creative souls in Moree, this two metre high artwork was exhibited in Head Office. It was the agency’s celebration of the larrikin irrigator, his irreverence and defiance of authority, even while that agency was the authority being defied.

To My Darling

Posted by NPA NSWon December 1, 2017November 27, 2017in Summer 2017Leave a comment

My Dearest Darling,

From the first time that I sat beside you in 1974, I have always loved you. Your peacefulness, your beauty, your generosity, your power. Gradually I learnt your history and came to know the people who have loved you since time began. The more I got to know you, the more I loved you – through the good times and the bad, through the floods and the dry times. From Wiimpatja I learnt a little bit about the customs of caring for you and understanding you. These customs had ensured that you nourished people with water, food, shelter, warmth in winter, coolness in summer, celebrations, stories and meaning.

Will the Basin Plan save the Darling River?

Posted by NPA NSWon September 1, 2017September 1, 2017in Campaigns and Conservation, Spring 2017Leave a comment

^{Bev Smiles, President, Inland Rivers Network}

The Murray Darling Basin Plan, gazetted in November 2012, has a budget of $13 billion to fund a new direction for water management and water sharing in one of the world’s largest river basins. It is the most expensive natural resource management project in the nation.