‘As rural Australia faces the agony of the drought, it is now time to plan ahead for the next 100 years of irrigated agriculture in this country,’ says Professor Gary Jones, Chief Executive of the CRC for Freshwater Ecology, today.

‘Water resources in south-eastern Australia have been stretched to breaking point, making us even more susceptible to the natural ravages of drought,’ he says. ‘Increasingly, irrigators will be looking to the tropical rivers of northern Australia for their future growth’. Coastal rivers in northern Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland carry two-thirds of Australia’s water resources, and most of them are undeveloped.

‘However, simply turning tropical rivers inland is a poor solution,’ says Professor Jones, who is also Professor of Freshwater Sciences at the University of Canberra.

‘Some tropical rivers could be sustainably developed for irrigation, if we adopt sustainability principles to guard their ecological health. And we need to recognise the natural heritage and cultural value of our great tropical rivers and establish a system of wild river reserves which maintain rivers of high ecological value in their natural state, with no irrigation.’

Here are six principles for ecologically sustainable development of northern Australian rivers:
· Irrigation systems must work with, not against, the natural wet and dry seasons, and long term flood and drought cycles
· No more than one-fifth of the total wet season discharge of a river should be allocated to irrigation. Dry season river flows should be protected, and irrigation supported by sustainable groundwater use during the dry season.
· The natural patterns of drying and flooding, and natural river and floodplain features such as snags, water holes, billabongs and wetlands, must be protected.
· At least 1 km of land either side of the river must be fenced off to protect it from grazing, clearing and disturbance.
· Where dams and weirs are needed, their total storage capacity should be no more than one-tenth of the total annual discharge of the river system.
· Water regulating structures such as dam walls and levee banks must be engineered to allow native fish and other animals access along the river and onto its floodplain.

‘As we move to northern Australia to sustain our national growth and prosperity in the coming century, we must not repeat the mistakes of the past century,’ says Professor Jones. ‘As Dr Tim Flannery said recently, we must learn to farm as Australians, not Europeans.’

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CONTACT for interview:
Professor Gary Jones, CRCFE, University of Canberra, 02 6201 5167, Mobile: 0408 411 033 gjones@enterprise.canberra.edu.au,