Cultural Flows in Murray River Country

We need to be open to an ecological dialogue to facilitate the flow of ideas and the creation of new knowledge for understanding our relationships with the rivers and our responses to river destruction - otherwise the moderns will continue to deplete, destroy and then depart elsewhere (a powerful phrase used by Grinde and Johansen) to begin their destructive cycle again. Indeed, the federal government has dedicated $20 million to a task force assessing the Northern Territory's tropical rivers for large-scale agricultural expansion, partly in response to the devastation of agricultural land in the Murray-Darling Basin. Up north, the alarmed traditional owners are saying 'We don't want another Murray' (John Daly quoted in Hancock). The task force has been created to avoid the mistakes of the Murray by investing in scientific expertise and a range of community consultation. However, it depends on what the 'mistakes' are perceived to be.

Extract from Murray River country: an ecological dialogue with traditional owners by Jessica Weir.