21 Days

Every year there is a narrow window of just 21 days when weather conditions are conducive to trans-tasman migrations of Australian flora and fauna…

We chose humid with constant drizzle.

Although technically these conditions only apply to my partner as I originally migrated westward from Aotearoa to Aust, and now back many years later to Aotearoa for the summer – kinda like the Banded Dotterel/Double-banded Plover, a native migrant bird of both countries that over-winters in Australia.

Shorebirds aside we’ve found our selves in beautiful Mt Eden a leafy inner suburb of Auckland that largely live up to it’s name. Mt Eden is an extinct volcano to provides great city views when it’s not raining as it is currently.

Aotearoa

touch down in Aotearoa/New Zealand land of the long white cloud

Colin Thiele’s Coorong

“‘It is an elemental region, a place of wind and water and vast skies, of sandhill and tussock, lagoon and waterweed, stone and scrub. It is a place of softened contours, muted colours and sea haze – and of glaring saltpans so intense that our brows pucker and our eyes wince. A place of winter storms and summer sunglades, of shorelines soft with sand and sibilant reeds, and of limestone outcrops sharper than teeth. A place to sense the universal in the particular, the infinite in the infinitessimal, the verities of life in blowing seeds and grains of sand.”

- Colin Thiele in his book ‘Coorong’ 1972

Is the situation in the lower lakes and Coorong now so bad it could be classed as one of Australia’s worst environmental disasters…?

Some of the nations top scientists say so in a report released a couple of days ago.

The Uni NSW report “Engineering a Crisis in a Ramsar Wetland: the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth, Australia” argues upstream diversions of water have put the coorong and lower lakes on the brink of collapse. 

Bird numbers have declined sharply, species of freshwater fish are threatened, and salinity is intensifying across the system.

ABC news has a story here 

and a concise and informative summary of the issues here

Interesting things I saw on the River Murray trip that I didn’t photograph

• fields of dead grape vines and fruit trees in marginal areas
• sprinkler and pivot irrigation, still being used
• the irrigated river flats under the Murray Bridge freeway bridge are now dry bare earth
• very few migratory shorebirds in coorong/murray mouth
• lots of dead crabs, of all sizes, near pelican point in the coorong
• very little riparian veg from Tailem Bend. River banks lined with km’s of weeping willows.

Murray Mouth and Coorong

A sweeping and vast place, so different from the forested upper stretches of the river. Ngarrindjeri land look and listen to the the southern ocean, lagoons and lakes permanent and ephemeral, and the high water mark of days gone by.

Didn’t see as many migratory shorebirds as I expected, including in areas designated as ‘very good birdwatching’…

Lower Murray and the Murray Mallee

Big Cod fibreglass and fleshy, paddle steamers on longwide stretches of river. Hot dry mallee as far as the eye can see in Hattah-Kulkyne and Murray-Sunset Nat parks, contrasted with bright green irrigated fruit of the tree and vine.

Stressed River Redgum Forests, conflict and superbly superb parrots

River Red Gum forests along the Murray are stressed ecosystems. I’ve read about this over the past couple of years but actually spending a few days exploring the Barmah-Millewa and Moira forests on both sides of the border bought the reality home.

Now I’m not painting doom and gloom…these forests are magical places still very much resonating with life in a way I’ve never experienced in many national parks. But they have been flogged by red gum logging for firewood and timber products, cattle grazing right down to the banks of the river, and innappropriate or non-existant flooding regimes.

At the beginning of this year, Barmah state park on the Vic side had logging and cattle grazing activity banned by the state govt who will shortly declare it a national park. You can still find last seasons cow pats decorating the ground and riparian vegetation beginning the slow road to recovery.

NSW is a different story. Logging and grazing have continued unabated, however the Commonwealth Govt stepped in earlier this year to put a halt to the logging due to the threats it posed to the Superb Parrot nesting habitat. A controversial decision. It’s not hard to miss the signs of anger from some pro-logging/grazing members of the local community…

Water for these forests is the huge issue. Red Gums and the surrounding Black Box woodlands need periodic flooding in winter/spring to remain healthy and propogate themselves. Looking up at the canopies through the forests, many were sparce and suffering insect attack.

These forests need our help.

Calls have grown louder for protection of red gum forests on the NSW side and better water allocations.  The Sydney Morning herald reported today that a letter, signed by 57 scientists, warns that the red gum forests and their wetlands are in poor health. It says the Government needs to ”act swiftly to hasten the much-needed repair and protection of these precious river red gum wetland forests by protecting them in new parks and reserves”.

The Victorian and NSW National Parks Associations are also active with their Red Gums Icons Project: a cross border campaign to end logging and cattle grazing in the NSW forests.

Upper Murray: Kakadu of the South

Barmah-Millewa forests and Hattah-Kulkyne lakes: vast redgum wetlands and lakes, reedbeds and numerous signs of Aboriginal habitation. I couldn’t help thinking ‘Kakadu of the South’. Nightimes were the noisiest I’ve ever heard in the bush with a cacophoney of non-stop calls, even heard a bittern for the first time.

River, creek and lake banks water levels looked low and many young redgums had their roots exposed. Stressed trees but still a truely magical place

The Mighty Murray

First up is a mini trip of a lifetime. Just like Roy Slaven and Tim Flannery I’m gonna take a week long trip down the length of the Murray River, from high country down to the Coorong at the Murray Mouth. I haven’t been up to ‘tha river’ in many years but I know it is in a dire state environmentally. I look forward to seeing this with my own eyes. Perhaps before it turns into a chain of ponds…