This fish kill is not a natural disaster. Unless we tackle the fundamental problem in our rivers, there will be many more to come, writes Richard Kingsford.
Menindee Lakes
The second Darling/Baaka River convoy to highlight unsustainable water-sharing plans and ungoverned water-trading practices was organised in early May. Mark Merritt reports.
Even at 85 year's old, Ngiyaampaa elder Dr Beryl Carmichael or Yungha-Du is still fighting for the rights of her people and country, writes Mark Merritt.
The Broken Hill water pipeline has been exposed as a vital element in a plan to sacrifice the Lower Darling and Murray rivers to the interests of corporate irrigators and the mining industry, writes Elena Garcia.
During a recent visit to the far-western NSW city of Broken Hill, Jim McIlroy and Coral Wynter travelled to Menindee and spoke to people involved in the struggle to save the Darling (Baaka) River and Menindee Lakes, now mostly an empty, barren depression in the surrounding plain, dotted with the skeletons of dead trees.
The push by state and federal governments to dry up the Menindee Lakes has already had a huge impact on communities, graziers and local Indigenous people. But not everyone is losing out on the government’s plans for the Murray Darling basin.
After five years and $13 billion of public money spent on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, there is less water in the river than ever before — and more in the private water storages of a handful of National Party donors, writes Elena Garcia.