NSW hiding its role in destroying wetlands and protecting irrigators

[Paul Sheridan]

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Howard Blackburn
'Crinolyn'
Moree, 2400

Media Release						25 May, 2004			
NSW hiding its role in destroying wetlands and protecting irrigators

The NSW Government is hiding behind its war of words with Queensland over water rights to divert attention away from its role in destroying internationally listed wetlands on the Gwydir River and Gingham Channel, west of Moree.

Howard Blackburn from "Crinolyn", one of five landowners who signed the first ever Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with the NSW and Federal Governments in 1999 to protect the Lower Gwydir and Gingham Wetlands under the international RAMSAR Convention, said today that the last five years had produced nothing but a string of broken promises and disaster for the wetlands.

"I have decided to pull out of the RAMSAR listing because state and federal government agencies have failed to live up to their end of the bargain and release enough water from Copeton Dam to keep the wetlands healthy.

"This is not a recent problem, as the Premier and Natural Resources Minister Craig Knowles would have you believe, but a systematic denial of environmental flows over a number of years in favour of big irrigation businesses.

"The wetlands are now a degraded form of their previously healthy state. I signed the MOU, as did the other landholders in the wetlands, in good faith and believed a RAMSAR listing would help bring about a fairer distribution of much needed water for the wetlands. This has not happened."

The landholders signed the MOU with the state and federal governments on World Wetlands Day, 1999, in Moree.

Mr Blackburn said the NSW Government's proposed perpetual water licence system, to be introduced into parliament next week, would only entrench a property right that the irrigation industry already abuses.  

"In a good year, when there is water available for all, irrigators get more than 500,000 mega litres of water from Copeton Dam alone, while the Gwydir Wetlands gets only 10,000 mega litres from an allocation for stock and domestic users.

"This may be great for big irrigation business but the NSW Government certainly hasn't stopped to think about what is happening to the people who live in this area. We have had to get rid of three-quarters of our stock because there isn't enough water and the wetlands have suffered significantly.

"The native grass in the wetlands have all but disappeared and the weed Lippia is taking over. Even semi-regular flooding would help stop this but the damage, I fear, is done."

Mr Blackburn called on the Premier and Minister Knowles to increase environmental flows through water sharing plans to be introduced in July.

Further information:	Howard Blackburn, (02) 6753 3231
			Paul Sheridan, 0410 516 656




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