Steering a unified approach towards fish recovery in the Murray–Darling

By: "Farm Tender" News
Dairy News
Feb 22, 2019
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By Phillip Glyde - Chief Executive Murray Darling Basin Authority

The death of thousands upon thousands of native fish in the Darling River downstream of the Menindee Lakes over summer has been distressing for the local community and has shocked people right across Australia and around the world.

The MDBA could not prevent these tragic events, but what we could do was respond quickly when they happened. That meant assembling know-how and capacity across state agencies and water managers. Good river management is a matter of collective responsibility and requires all levels of government to work together, along with scientists and local communities—nobody wants a repeat of these events. This led to an action plan that pulls together expertise across the Basin to respond to the continued high risk of more fish deaths before the current drought breaks.

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As is usually the case in the Basin, rolling out put the action plan is a joint effort. New South Wales agencies, who manage the Darling, addressed the local impacts, relocated suffering Murray cod to water of better quality, have been trialling aeration techniques in affected river reaches and reported on the immediate causes of the fish kills. State and Commonwealth environmental water was made available to fend off the possibility of fish deaths in vulnerable parts of the Murrumbidgee. The Commonwealth Government announced the new Native Fish Recovery and Management Strategy. And the MDBA is providing monitoring support and using satellite imagery to provide real time data to identify fish refuges and assess river reaches at risk.

Science has made incredible strides to improve our understanding of native fish in the Murray–Darling over recent years, and is helping us to manage river flows that support fish where we can to generate breeding, to provide refuges and boost migration between rivers. But we all clearly need to do more.

Exactly why the fish deaths happened, whether they could have been avoided and can be avoided in the future, is currently under the microscope of two separate investigations. The government’s independent assessment is due to report on 20 February. The MDBA has willingly shared information and briefed all scientists involved in these separate investigations because we, like the wider community don’t want to see these events repeated.

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The findings will add important science to fill some of the gaps in our knowledge and inform the development of the Native Fish Recovery and Management Strategy.

The Basin Plan is at the core of all this work, and is being rolled out with the MDBA’s firm hand in accordance with the Water Act. The fish deaths happened after too many years of too much water taken from the rivers, and the Basin Plan is designed to turn that around.

Managing the river and its fish populations to health will demand a collaborative approach from all of us––scientists, people and businesses who live and work on the river, and the governments that run the rivers––to ensure they work in everyone’s interests, including those of the environment.

And it does need managing. Most of the rivers in the Murray–Darling are not wild any more: as a nation we have built pipelines, dams and weirs to save water and to reduce the impact of floods, to support communities and drive industries.

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This came at the expense of the river environment. The shock of fish deaths in the Lower Darling, and the Namoi, the Macquarie, the Lachlan and elsewhere in the north, is a reminder that we are all looking for the one outcome—a healthy river.

The Basin Plan cannot prevent droughts and cannot provide water when there is none. But by rebalancing the share of water when the flows return, the Plan will ensure that our native fish populations will get a chance to flourish again.

The collaborative response to the fish deaths, in all its forms—from on-ground activity and mitigation works, to scientific studies and the renewed community interest across Australia in the rivers of the Murray–Darling—demonstrates the desire and ability to work together. In time, I am confident our collective efforts will bring our precious fish populations back to full health.

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