The Australian Opinion Page

A Watershed in River Protection

Most people now realise that our rivers are one of our most important natural assets and need to be protected from further degradation. We are spending billions of dollars trying to repair the damage we have done to our catchments and their rivers without paying much attention to protecting those that have not yet been damaged.

It is important also that we identify river systems that are still in good condition and prevent further degradation or loss of biodiversity.

It is my belief that we need to establish a national system of Heritage River Reserves, similar to National Parks, although ones that we allow present land uses to continue. We should prohibit further extraction of water from these designated rivers or intensification of land use in their catchments as the first step towards protecting them.

A system of river reserves will do four things. It will protect some internationally unique river systems for the enjoyment and education of Australians. It will help meet Australia’s international obligations on protecting biodiversity. It will allow the development of benchmarks of river health so that we can assess how developed rivers change over time. It will allow rivers to act as biological ‘seeding’ sources for rivers downstream that are degraded, helping to restore downstream rivers to a healthy state.

The States have established processes for identifying rivers with high conservation value. The Paroo River and Coopers Creek are examples of relatively undamaged rivers in Queensland, and the Ovens in Victoria. Other important and relatively undamaged rivers worthy of attention include the east Alligator in Northern Territory, the Clarence in New South Wales and the Fitzroy in Western Australia.

In return for designation that gives longer term protection, landholders and managers could be given access to funding for actions that improve river health. These might include the building of fish ladders that allow free movement of fish through weirs and restoration work to restore and protect riverbank vegetation. The Federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act would be a suitable legislative vehicle, but it must be done in partnership and cooperation with the States.

The trouble with the current State approach is that it leaves the designated rivers vulnerable to pressure with a change of policy or Government. It doesn’t provide the long term protection we need to guarantee the health of these rivers. The current protection is limited, and the pressures to ‘develop’ these water resources will increase as water becomes scarce and the price of it continues to escalate, or even during a major drought. Pressures on State Ministers in these situations can be intense.

What we need now is a formal system of designation that provides ongoing protection for these rivers, without impacting on present farming in those catchments.

Why should it be a national priority to protect the freshwater biodiversity we have left? Because we are fast losing the biodiversity from some rivers -- 50% of our wetlands have already been lost. These are rich store-houses of biodiversity. 16% of our amphibians and 9% of our freshwater fishes are extinct, threatened or vulnerable.

Biodiversity is vital for our continued health and prosperity. Apart from its role in helping to provide fresh drinking water, biodiversity in rivers also helps to alleviate floods, remove pollutants, trap sediments, and moderate toxic algal blooms. These are the valuable services that river ecosystems provide for us.

Biodiversity of rivers can also be important for biotechnology. The patent for Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), a technique that dramatically boosted the biological revolution, sold for $US300 million. This technique rests upon enzymes isolated from heat-resistant bacteria in thermal springs. The economic benefits to society are invaluable.

Scientists, policy-makers and managers who attended the recent Fenner 2001 Conference on aquatic biodiversity agreed on two other national priorities for protecting aquatic biodiversity. Firstly, to develop a coordinated approach to manage the impact of invasive exotic species, such as carp, and secondly, to increase the investment in determining what freshwater biodiversity is left and where it resides.

We already have numerous strategies and plans in place, but they need to be translated into action by government, managers and the community. Without action, we will be left with the best documented extinctions in history.

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A complete copy of Professor Cullen’s article on a National System of Heritage Rivers is available on the CRC’s website http://freshwater.canberra.edu.au Select publications, scroll down and select WaterShed July 2001.

Professor Peter Cullen is Chief Executive of the Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology and recipient of this year’s Prime Minister’s ‘Environmentalist of the Year Award’.

The Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology is a world-class research centre specialising in river system ecology, river restoration and sustainable river management.