We've just filed a new case in the Federal Court on behalf of a community action group challenging a major artificial engineering project in a fragile floodplain in northwest Victoria.
For decades, this community has cared for the floodplain forests and wetlands along the Murray River.
But now, a Victorian government water authority wants to artificially engineer the floodplain at Nyah near Swan Hill, and build levy banks, concrete regulators and pump stands to irrigate these fragile and much-loved ephemeral wetlands.
The Friends of Nyah Vinifera Park are deeply concerned this multi-million dollar project will cause significant damage and permanently scar the landscape.
This project also ignores the wishes of many traditional owners, who are concerned it will destroy cultural heritage, including middens and ceremonial grounds.
They’ve seen the fallout from projects like this elsewhere: blackwater, blue green algae, catastrophic fish deaths. Fish can’t swim up a pump.
They are going to court because they believe this major artificial engineering project was unlawfully approved without proper consideration of alternative ways of watering these wetlands.
As this small community group bands together to protect the mighty Murray and its floodplains, they would appreciate your support.
Can you donate to the Friends of Nyah Vinifera Park's crowdfunder to help them run this important case? www.chuffed.org/project/murray-floodplains-case

"These major artificial engineering works will scar the landscape and destroy habitat for rare and threatened wildlife."
– Jacquie Kelly, Friends of Nyah Vinifera Park
For decades, this community group has worked hand in hand with the Watti Watti People, traditional custodians of the land, to protect the floodplains, wetlands and forests along the Murray River.
They’ve spoken up, written letters, asked for meetings, sent submissions, conducted research, protested, expressed concerns and filed objections.
They’ve done everything they can to bring Australia’s most important river system back to health.
Going to court is a last resort, but the Friends of Nyah Vinifera Park feel they have no choice.
These floodplain forests are precious, providing homes and breeding sites for countless native species including growling grass frogs and painted honeyeaters.
They are a spiritually important place for traditional owners, and a refuge for the community to camp, swim, fish, rest and play.
Although these fragile floodplain forests and wetlands are in a poor state and need water, the community group says it makes no sense to pump some water into one spot while the rest of the river system dies of thirst.
“There are lots and lots of ancestral burial mounds, middens, ceremonial grounds and other rich Watti Watti cultural heritage in that forest – it’s like our crown jewels.”
– Brendan Kennedy, Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations (MLDRIN)
By challenging this in the Federal Court, they hope to set a precedent that compels governments to properly consider alternatives to artificially engineering nationally protected wetlands.
Ultimately, the group wants the Victorian government to deliver real environmental water to these floodplains, rather than making up ‘paper water’ with tricky accounting.
Rather than adding more concrete, steel and rock, they hope one day the mighty Murray will flow freely, surging and receding as nature intended, nourishing the land as it did for millennia.
We’ll keep you updated as this important public interest litigation continues.
Until then, you can help this community group get to court by chipping into Friends of Nyah Vinifera Park’s crowdfunder: www.chuffed.org/project/murray-floodplains-case
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