Water

Nature conservation groups have criticised the NSW Coalition government’s $10 million plan to remove threatened fish species from the Darling River in the state's south-west, following the disastrous fish kill last summer.

“I believe the numbers will change the game,” said First Nations activist and artist Uncle Bruce Shillingsworth in an interview with Green Left Weekly about the global climate emergency and the water crisis in the Murray-Darling river system.

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 Murray-Darling river system is the lifeblood of Australian agriculture, but it is now in serious crisis.

A protest outside New South Wales Parliament on July 10 demanded the state government take real action to combat the dire situation facing the Murray-Darling river system.

In many regions of the world, water is becoming a scarce commodity that is bought, sold and fought over.

The Environment Defenders Office Queensland (EDO QLD) announced on June 12 that in a huge win for its client the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), the federal government has conceded the case brought against it over Adani’s North Galilee Water Scheme — the plan to pump up to 12.5 billion litres of water a year from the Suttor River to Adani’s Carmichael mine site.

On May 26, journalists from the Real News Network (RNN) interviewed residents and local representatives from the barrios in Caracas about the impact of US sanctions on critical water supplies.

A WaterNSW submission to the ongoing Independent Expert Panel into Mining in Sydney’s Catchment has highlighted the destructive impact coal mining is having on the Sydney Water Catchment Area.

It called for curbs on two big coal mines in Sydney's catchment, saying millions of litres of water are being lost daily and environmental impacts are likely breaching approval conditions.

This ensemble piece ranges over a series of time zones, travelling from the near future to the early 20th century, mostly in Australia, but also the Ellis Island immigration centre in New York. Its main segment is a deceptively simple, kitchen-sink style, family drama in which home truths are exposed and conventional dishonesties unravelled.

The following manifesto was drawn up by rural and city-based activists.

A key federal election issue, which the carefully stage-managed leaders’ debates are ignoring, is one on which all our lives depend: access to clean drinking water.

“The river is the blood of the Earth”, Muruwari and Budjiti man and artist Bruce Shillingsworth declared at the “Yaama Ngunna Baaka — Welcome to Our River” Mosman Art Gallery exhibition on April 28.

You may not know that coking coal, used in steel making, is mined in the Greater Sydney drinking water catchment.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) met on March 18 to investigate the human rights situation in Palestine and issued a report that focused on the impact of the occupation on the environment and natural resources, the ongoing use of excessive force by Israeli security forces against demonstrators in Gaza, and the near-humanitarian catastrophe in the territory caused by the blockade.

The ABC 4 Corners program “Pumped”, which screened on July 24, 2017, showed that far from saving the river system, the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has created a financial windfall for a select few.

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