A watery plan of compromises (Murray-Darling debate: article from ABC.NET.AU)

A watery plan of compromises

HTTP://WWW.ABC.NET.AU/UNLEASHED/40026.HTML
13 OCTOBER 2010
JAMIE PITTOCK

Is the furore of irrigators a sign that our governments are finally going to adequately conserve the Murray-Darling Basin’s environment? Sadly, no.

The Guide to the proposed Basin Plan published by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority on October 8 proposes to reallocate between 27 and 37 per cent - or 3,000 to 4,000 gigalitres (GL) - of water consumed in the basin. But this is insufficient to conserve wetlands in the basin designated as internationally important under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. It would also amount to a breach of international environmental law and could see the validity of a compromise basin plan tested in the High Court.

Australia was a founding member of the Ramsar Convention in 1971, endorsing all of its subsequent decisions. The treaty requires members to maintain the "ecological character" of designated Ramsar wetland sites. Ramsar is not a preservationist treaty: it promotes the "wise use" of wetlands. Parts of Ramsar sites in the basin are well managed for livestock and timber production. However, the ecological character of wetlands requires water at the right time and of sufficient quantity and quality to support flora and fauna.

Floodplain wetlands cover 60,000 square kilometres or 6 per cent of the basin, and Australian Governments have designated 16 Ramsar sites covering 6,363 square kilometres. The wetlands are of cultural and economic importance to the Indigenous traditional owners. These freshwater ecosystems harbour the richest biodiversity in the basin, including 95 threatened species, which Australia has also promised to conserve under international treaties. The wetlands generate critical ecological services, and pleasant environments that are the basis for tourism.

By the turn of this century the environmental impact of bad management on the basin’s wetlands was too obvious for our governments to ignore: thousands of hectares of desiccated red gum forests were dead or dying. In response the state and federal governments set targets in The Living Murray program in 2003 to conserve icon wetlands, including five Ramsar sites. The targets adopted were compromises. Lower targets were set, aimed at conserving only half of the aquatic vegetation of the Hattah Lakes and just 30 per cent of the red gum floodplain forests of Gunbower-Koondrook-Pericoota. Governments dismally failed in achieving even these low targets. In 2009 just 3 per cent of Hattah and 11 per cent of Gunbower-Koondrook-Pericoota were in good condition.

The authority’s guide to the draft basin plan proposes further compromises. The low-ball proposal of reallocating just 3,000 GL, would leave the River Murray with "poor" environmental flows, and the authority notes that environmental objects of the Water Act would only be achieved with an optimistic "long-term return to wetter conditions across the basin". "Giving effect to relevant international agreements" is only achieved with the return of 7,600 GL. A management target for conserving only 75 per cent of the red gum forests in good condition in key wetlands is proposed, and this compromise can only be achieved with the return of 4,000 GL to the environment. The 75 per cent target is lower than the conservation objectives adopted in 2003 for the Chowilla/Riverland and Barmah–Millewa Ramsar sites. No conservation targets are proposed for other wetland ecosystems, such as the black box floodplain forests. Further trade-offs are contemplated in allocating water between the Coorong and upstream red gum forests.

Managing for poor condition, maintaining one Ramsar wetland at the expense of others, failing to conserve different wetland ecosystem types, and seeking good condition for only 75 per cent of the red gum forests in designated Ramsar sites is inconsistent with the convention. It is not obvious that the authority understands Australia's legal obligations under the treaty.

The Ramsar Convention relies on moral suasion to enforce its provisions: sadly our governments will not be dragged off to the International Court of Justice to explain their environmental sins. However there are significant domestic implications in ignoring convention obligations. In 2007, when the federal government dismissed the ineffectual attempts by the states to restore the basin’s environmental health, both sides of politics supported the adoption of the Water Act and its basin plan to regulate water use. The Federal Government’s constitutional mandate for the Water Act is largely based on implementing the Ramsar Convention. If the basin plan does not faithfully implement Australia’s obligations under the convention, wetland conservation activists could seek redress in the High Court.

There is no doubt that the Federal Government faces difficult decisions in deciding how much to conserve the basin’s environment versus maintaining irrigated agriculture. However the authority’s Guide proposes yet more compromises at the expense of the environment, similar to those that placed Australia in this invidious position to begin with. Regional communities deserve certainty and that will not be achieved by more half-measures that continue environmental degradation and end up in the courts.

Jamie Pittock is a researcher at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University. His research (with co-authors) on the legal obligations to conserve wetlands in Murray-Darling Basin will be published in the Environment and Planning Law Journal in November.