The Environmental Water Trust plans to focus on returning reaches of rivers and creeks to their previous environmental flow and to protect largely intact river systems from degradation. One approach is to start at the top of a catchment and work down, monitoring how much water stays in the system, and how many kilometers of river have been returned to a more natural flow state. Leaving water in rivers reduces the time these rivers are stressed in drought periods and allows important refuges to remain during periods of low flow, providing important restocking of species when river conditions improve.
Lower Gwydir wetlands after floodplain development (A.Hankinson)
Brolgas return to the flooded Lower Gwydir wetlands (A.Hankison)
The Environmental Water Trust has decided that in the context of the major investment by the federal government in the key areas of the Murray Darling basin, we will not compete in those areas but will focus attention in more remote catchments and on coastal areas.
Clear flowing upper reach of coastal river
Repairing the coastal river banks
