Fish Scientists Rise to the Bait - Incorporating Native Fish Science into Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

Competing demand for water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin of south-eastern Australia has contributed to serious declines in key ecosystem components, including native fish. In response, the federal body for Basin-scale water planning, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, released the Basin Plan (2012). The Basin Plan is a key part of reforms to water management in the Basin and responsibility for its implementation is shared across the federal system of government and the five Basin states/territories.

Effective collaboration between fisheries scientists, managers and policy makers can result in strong scientific principles underpinning policy. A key component of the Basin Plan has been the development of a Basin-wide Environmental Watering Strategy.  This Strategy used best available science to set overarching Basin-wide environmental objectives, targets and watering strategies for key themes of connectivity, native vegetation, water-birds, and native fish. The development of fish components for the Strategy garnered scientific knowledge through regional expert panels, building on previous decades of investment and cross-jurisdictional efforts in native fish management across the Basin, and supporting the community’s value of native fish. The future challenge for agencies will be ensuring that collaborative mechanisms continue to feed science into policy to support adaptive management and native fish/ecosystem recovery.