How to kill a million fish.
The stench of a million-dead fish is the stench of the corruption of the Murray Darling Basin Authority.
Congratulations must go to the federal and state politicians complicit in this outrage. Just as huge agricultural corporations have stolen the headwaters of our great rivers by diverting the catchment to their private dams, the theft of the catchments and the headwaters of our southern mountains and forests in the Victorian Central Highlands by clear-fell logging continues unabated as we speak. Clear-fell logging in the catchments reduces flows by 30 percent.
The pathway to the death of our great rivers and millions of fish that lie stinking in the sun, begins in the catchment. One step at a time we march towards the inevitable outcome that shocks and dismays us all.
The death of a river is the ‘death by a thousand cuts’. Capture of the catchment by profit hungry corporations leave communities and nature bereft of their rightful asset. A vibrant healthy river, where extraction and pollution are regulated and a fair price is part of what the environment and communities expect of their rivers.
All we have now is a stinking mess! Authorities will claim that a blue–green algae event is natural. It is not. The rot starts at the top of the catchment. Just like the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, our current crop of politicians are complicit with the directors of boards of corporations.
The stench is clearly not just the rotting fish.
The good news that can come out of this mess is that we can do something about it.
- Call for a Royal Commission into the Murray-Darling Basin Corporation and the management of Australia’s water resources
- Call for the prosecution of all parties guilty of the misuse of water.
The clear-fell loggers, rice and cotton farmers will tell you that what they are doing is sustainable. The truth is “… the emperor has no clothes”.
