Indigenous and environmental groups reject new Murray-Darling recommendations
Indigenous communities and Environment advocates are urging the federal government to reject new recommendations for the federal governments Murray-Darling basin plan. The contentious plan aims to manage the river systems across all states to share water among farmers while leaving enough for the river and the environment it supports. One of those environments is the Ramsar-listed Coorong wetland at the mouth of the Murray River in South Australia. A Senate Select committee, chaired by Liberal-Democrat David Leyonhjelm, has suggested reclassifying the internationally protected wetland as an estuarine salt water system, not a freshwater one. This could mean removing infrastructure that keeps sea water out of the wetlands, and that freshwater allocations provided to the area being sent elsewhere. But critics say this will have devastating effects all along the river system.
Senate Select Committee Murray-Darling Plan report