Indigenous rights

For many decades, too much water has been taken out of the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin – much of it for big corporate irrigation projects – for the rivers to remain healthy. At times when the lower Darling River has run dry, investigations have shown irrigators upriver had been stealing and stockpiling water for huge cotton farms. This has a real and devastating impact on Aboriginal country and communities.

Our friends at MLDRIN – the Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations – describe the misuse of water as “a kick in the guts for our rivers, undermining the chances of restoring vital habitat for threatened native fish, water birds and majestic red gum forests”. It jeopardises the wellbeing and cultural identify of Traditional Owners who have lived beside and cared for the Barka (Darling River) for millennia.

Environmental Justice Australia works with Aboriginal communities in the southern Murray-Darling Basin through MLRDIN to achieve justice in the management of water resources. EJA’s assistance includes advice and the development of advocacy tools.

Summer legal experience on the Torres Strait

March 31, 2020

EJA Reconciliation Action Plan

February 27, 2020

Response to the State of the Yarra report

March 29, 2019

First Nations group proposes changes to Australia’s water law

July 20, 2018

Uluru Statement from the Heart: a response from EJA

October 25, 2017

MLDRIN gathering on the Murrumbidgee River

Aboriginal water rights: Legal Analysis of submissions to Review of the Water Act

November 20, 2014

Significant win for James Price Point

August 22, 2013

Indigenous rights: news and media

July 19, 2018

‘Aqua nullius’: Indigenous group fronts River Murray royal commission (NITV)

July 19, 2018

Aust breaching standards: Indigenous group (The Australian)

July 19, 2018

First Nations propose changes to Australia’s Water Act

June 23, 2017

A new era of looking after the Yarra River

November 25, 2014

Aboriginal water rights: Legal analysis of submissions to the Review of the Commonwealth Water Act

May 26, 2014

Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010 (September 2010)