My name is Polly Cutmore, I am a Traditional Owner from the Gwydir and MacIntyre Rivers in northern NSW. I am currently involved with the Commonwealth Aboriginal water buy-back program, the Boobera Lagoon Crown Land Committee and the NSW Gwydir First Nations Environmental Water Group.
Yesterday I travelled to NSW Parliament to give the government a message: There aren’t enough water flows during dry times to keep the rivers of the Northern Basin alive.
I need your help – please sign our petition calling on the government to let the rivers flow.
I was raised on the Mehi River at Moree, that is part of my Country. When I was young, it was never like this. Even in dry times, it was a wide river and there was always flow. We had to cross the river a lot to get to the shops and to town and I remember crossing the river with my shoes off. It was only up my ankles at times, but it always flowed.
When I was a girl I used to go fishing with Nan Wright. I loved lying on the bank and looking into the water to watch the life in the river. I could see all the way on the bottom and see every fish swim past, the large ones and the small ones, what we called the little sunfish who were beautiful in their many colours.
In my lifetime, the river turned from being an overflowing system, giving life to the surrounding country to now where it is just a dirty trickle down the middle of the riverbed.
The recently released Connectivity Report, outlining the bare minimum needed to keep the Darling/Baaka alive, is a big step in the right direction but we need the NSW Government to listen, respond and act on the recommendations.
Sign the petition to ask the government to adopt the recommendations in full.
The report advocates for an increase in baseflow to the system, this is the bare minimum that the river needs to stay alive during drought. I call this the ‘basic’ flow, because it is necessary for all life to survive.
If this doesn’t happen, the river will continue to die at current rates of irrigation and what I regard as outright theft.
A healthy river is important for our cultural identity and our wellbeing.
The death of the river means the death of our cultural identity. Before contact, all the clans had river frontage. We all relied on the rivers, the springs and waterholes. Everything we did involved water, just like today. The flowing rivers and springs fed the joining creeks and waterholes and formed large wetlands not seen for a long time. This is our cultural heritage and needs to be restored.
Water quality is another key issue for First Nation people. We always drank out of the river, there was no herbicides then, or dangerous bacteria. We recognised the importance of the streams for health and well-being.
The water itself used to have different local qualities such that we knew what part of the river the water came from. Dhagaay (Yellowbelly fish) from the upper Gwydir tasted different to ones found at Menindee (we could taste the different soils).
But since irrigation came, the rivers are not like that now. The water now is all the same, dominated by sediment and nutrients and toxins washed in from agriculture and infested with carp which tolerate these conditions much better than our native fish.
They have turned our inland rivers into big irrigation channels.
Making sure that flows keep the rivers healthy also means that other communities downstream receive that water. Even though we are different mobs, we stay in touch telling each other when the flows are coming and where the fishing is good. This still goes on today. Our Law has always told us that taking care of the river, the springs and the floodplains means others will also benefit. These obligations are bound by kinship laws and family connections.
‘Connectivity’ to us also means the connection between the water, land and people. It means our Dreaming Path. An important aspect of our Law regarding was the care for not just the river itself but the springs and waterholes, the nurseries and the refuge sites.
Join us in fulfilling our responsibility to care for the rivers. Together we can put the pressure on the government to put water for the environment first and let the rivers flow. Sign the petition
In solidarity,
Polly Cutmore