The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has just released a report entitled ‘World’s Top 10 River’s at Risk’.
Australia’s Murray-Darling is included in the top 10. But it’s two rivers, so maybe the title should be ‘World’s Top 11 River’s at Risk’?
The report goes onto state that, “The Murray and Darling Rivers have great variability in year to year flows, and their ecology is driven by large floods covering their extensive flood plains and intervening dry periods.”
This may be the case for stretches of the Darling River, but the Murray is now a completely regulated system which, has even during this worst drought, been mostly full of water.
Anyway, this new report which has generated much publicity for WWF has identified the “key threat” to the Murray-Darling as “invasive species, especially from aquarium trade”.
But, interestingly, key invasive fish species identified in the report were not introduced recently or from the aquarium trade.
According to the new WWF report, native fish species such as the Silver Perch, Freshwater Catfish and the large Murray Cod are all “in rapid decline” while numbers of invasive species have significantly increased.
The report cites a government report, Barrett 2004, and a World Resource Institute website, WRI 2003, to support the contention that numbers of native fish are in decline and another government report, but also on the native fish strategy, MDBC 2005, as evidence numbers of invasive species are on the increase.
But none of these reports included good credible data on changes in numbers of invasive or native fish species.
The government’s native fish strategy was written by ecologist Jim Barrett. I contacted Mr Barrett when I was writing ‘Myth & the Murray: Measuring the Real State of the River Environment’ back in 2003.
Based in part on information provided by Mr Barrett, I wrote in that report that, “Since the 1980s, carp numbers [a key invasive species in the Murray River] have been observed to decline and downstream of Yarrawonga, numbers are thought to be about half what they were in 1997 and are now estimated to represent 21 per cent of total fish numbers. According to the Murray Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) a likely explanation for the decline in carp numbers is that the initial population boom resulted in an overutilization of available resources and subsequent reduction to equilibrium carrying capacity for this species. In contrast, local fishermen attribute the observed reduction in carp numbers to predation from an increasing Murray cod population.”
The WWF report acknowledges that, “since 1996 A$2 billion has been allocated to recover water to increase environmental flows and restore fish passage for the lower 1,800 km of Murray River.”
But in the next paragraph, without providing any data, falsely concludes that “despite these worthy initiatives, the ecological health of the rivers continues to decline.”
But even the typically pessimistic head of the Murray Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) Dr Wendy Craik recently described the “visionary Native Fish Strategy” as a success with “solid evidence” that native fish are using the new innovative fishways built as a part of the sea to Hume Dam fish passage program. Furthermore, Dr Craik claimed another success in the “resnagging” project in which large tree stumps, or snags, are placed strategically into rivers. The snags provide refuge from fast-flowing water and help to recreate original river habitats for native fish.”
But when is the MDBC, or WWF, or someone else, going to start collecting some good credible data on fish numbers?
In summary, the WWF report ‘World’s Top 10 River’s at Risk’ which is making news today, is about 20 years out of date at least with respect to the Murray River. Indeed while numbers of native fish have on average, probably declined since European settlement, with a crash in Murray Cod populations in the early 1960s, there is evidence to suggest numbers of native fish, including the Murray Cod, are now on the increase while invasive species are on the decline. So the WWF has got it all the wrong way around. Then again, they are perhaps more interested in ‘hand-waving’ than river ecology.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
There was also a recent report (escapes me now) that suggested that Carp were declining due to a failure to adapt to drought. While native fish respond to declining water levels by finding lower levels to wait out the dry season in, the carp do the opposite and head upstream into the diminishing flow and suffer drastic declines accordingly.
What the WWF and others appear very reluctant to consider is the role of irrigation ditches in maintaining fish habitats. Clearly, the total fish habitat of the MDB has expanded with the construction of irrigation chanels. But don’t expect any recognition of this fact by the bimboscenti.
The absence of snags in chanels would obviously favour the carp over the natives at breeding times but this has clearly not discouraged native fish from making full use of this habitat during the rest of the growth cycle.
Clearly, if water volume, depth and continuity are the principle elements of fish habitat then the native fish habitat has expanded considerably over the pre-settlement extent and the quality and contributive value of that habitat has also improved.
It is a particularly inconvenient truth for the funding imperatives of the river Tsars.
Long time reader, first time poster.
I was most intrigued to notice that there was a river from each continent (except Antarctica of course.)
Could it be the WWF just trying to create waves? They wouldn’t do that surely.
6 continents (without Antarctica), 10 (or 11) rivers.
Roister, smells like consipracy theory to me
Now now, WWF would not conspire to produce a report that was biased, they just produce a biased report which is OK, everybody does it, even Exxon.
There are two rivers, the Murray and the Darling.
WWF have had the opportunity to back a truly sustainable landuse in sandalwood nut production across Australia’s southern cropping zones. The response my grower network (Australian Sandalwood Network) got was WWF needed our production system to be quantified as sustainable by some State govt initiative that has come up with a formula for sustainability in broadacre agriculture. I laughed at Richard McLellan and said to him, ‘You could give me your best example of a EMSed, quality assured, feel good farmer in the whole continent of Australia, I’ll pitch him against my worst sandalwood grower and he still wouldn’t have a patch of ground to justify who is the most sustainable.’
WWF is a grandstanding joke. I am thinking of turning in my governorship. They still don’t seem to understand that membership is going to go into terminal decline once the economy takes a turn for the worse …
Aaron, you may fall off your chair when you read that I actually agree with you on certification schemes. These are nothing more than industry marketing schemes that justify lowest common denominator ecology.
My experience with them is in the forestry field where a bunch of urban tax dodgers can buy up a farm, deep rip, plough and plant a clonal exotic monoculture from boundary fence to boundary fence and get his eventual clearfall harvest in one big hit fully certified as sustainable and minimising environmental harm.
Meanwhile another landowner actually foregoes income but gets no tax deductions, allows his back paddock to quietly regenerate the full suite of native timbers over 40 years to restore the original forest mosaic in a multi-aged stand with the full suite of dependent species making enhanced use of this habitat. And because of the multiple species with varied growth rates and various size and age classes he must carry out small scale partial harvests that pose minimal disturbance and allow rapid recovery.
Yet, this smaller scale does not justify the overheads and plain bull$hit associated with so-called environmental certification so some markets are actually closed to him on environmental grounds.
Certification schemes provide no points of comparison and no actual ecological benchmarks like minimum possum, owl, glider density etc.
Certification schemes provide the most perverse disincentives, especially in the third world where the Generals have no trouble getting fully certified wood from their extensive clearfall “concessions” while the small band of Dayaks who cut a few trees from their recently misappropriated traditional lands are prosecuted for their “illegal” logging.
Environmental Certification Schemes have essentially lost the plot. They have failed to remember the most important lesson of all.
“For when the one great scorer comes to write against your name, He marks – not that you won or lost – But how you played the game”. Grantland Rice.
Bet you Anthony=Luke=Phil Done 🙂
Possible, Louis, certainly part of the rentacrowd.
Nope – wrong call Louis. And Phil sends hugs.
Things look up for Murray’s besieged native fish
Australia
Thursday, 22 March 2007
Despite continuing extreme dry conditions, things are looking up for the depleted and besieged native fish of the Murray River, with population increases reported at various points along the river.
Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) chief executive, Dr Wendy Craik, says monitors at Torrumbarry Weir and Lock 26, between Echuca and Swan Hill, have reported that more than 20,000 juvenile silver perch have passed through the “fishway” since the beginning of the year.
Built in 1991, the fishway at Torrumbarry was the first to demonstrate how these innovative “fish ladders” help fish to pass through weirs allowing them to complete a range of life cycle requirements, including breeding and feeding, up and down the River. Monitoring at Torrumbarry has recorded up to 2200 endangered silver perch a day.
Read more from FarmOnline: http://www.farmonline.com.au/news_daily.asp?ag_id=41285
Marohasy again sidesteps the issue of the flood plains.
Tell, us Jen, what is the state of flood plain ecology now compared to just prior to colonisation?
And haven’t platypus been absent from the lower reaches of the Murray since the 1960s? Why is this the case?
steve m, floodplains are a difficult issue. The flood mitigation characteristics of our major storages result in lower peak flood levels. Even with gates open the bigger area of the storage, compared to the natural river, absorbs some of the surge.
Chowilla National Park in SA has been given an allocation of water which they pump to areas of significance, without having to inundate other lower value bits. This also alleviates some of the salt risk that would go back into the Murray after a general inundation.
SA now in the process of closing off lagoons to constrain evaporation losses, my belief is they are natural floodplains flooded longterm through artificial weir pool levels. So it works both ways. Some reqire more flooding some require less.