Murray Heartlands has been established as a result of a review on how modernisation of independent irrigator operators could be sustained for the benefit of future generations.
The review was undertaken by nem Australasia Pty Ltd and initially funded by Riverina Sustainable Land Water Management Plan Trust, which represents landholders in the Murray Irrigation Limited footprint.
The group is now refining its survey findings to submit as part of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan Review.
It will offer up five key solutions on how water efficiencies can be achieved without resorting to a reduction of the productive pool of water.
Project director Michael Renehan - a former CEO of Murray Irrigation Limited - and project coordinator John McKinstry are also bringing their findings to stakeholders, politicians, and to candidates in the Farrer by-election to ensure saturation of their important message.
They were in Deniliquin last week to present their vision to various stakeholders, including the aim of making the Murray Heartlands brand as identifiable as the Barossa brand in South Australia and Victoria’s High Country.
The ultimate aim is for the umbrella term to conjure up an image of the NSW Murray Valley as being important as a food and fibre producing region, and for environmental stewardship.
Mr Renehan said key to the vision is that it was developed in close consultation with the community, and importantly emerging generations of food and fibre producers.
“The review highlighted that the majority of environmentally conscious constituents within the major urban centres, that help shape environmental policies of state and federal authorities such as the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, are largely unaware of the environmental significance of the region to the health of the entire Murray River system; in addition to the national significance of this environmentally sustainable agricultural heartland within Australia’s largest inland delta,” Mr Renehan said.
“Policies over the past 10 to 15 years have had far reaching consequences in relation to sustainable productive water entitlements along the Murray, Murrumbidgee and Goulburn river systems.
“No where has this been more apparent than in the upper reaches of the Murray River, where permanent general security entitlements have reduced by over 27 per cent while allocations have fallen to a long-term average of 50 per cent.
“Having consulted extensively with the current emerging generation of farmers, first nations and a diverse range of stakeholders, the nem review identified the environmentally significant role that this generation of farmers play in protecting and developing the county’s most significant agricultural footprints, within environmentally sustainable agricultural infrastructure that is capable of being promoted as a showcase to the world.
“Murray Heartlands is a name that fully captures the importance of a healthy ‘heart’ to ensure the overall health of the entire Murray River system, and is as critically important as any other region in the Murray-Darling Basin.”
Mr Renehan and Mr McKinstry said five pillars of strategic imperatives to improve water security for the region have been identified, and will be core to its submission to the Basin Plan review.
The pillars are:
1. Modernising MDBA and state government infrastructure for measurement, modelling and analysis of environmental flows;
2. Developing a trusted governance framework between the state bodies and the MDBA using a science-informed and technology-based approach;
3. Upgrading the design of the water market trading environment to ensure that the diversity of use aligns with the environmental constraints of the region;
4. Ensure that the sustainable water limits of the entire region including cultural water for first nations and environmental flows onto the flood plains proportionately to climate change impacts for the region to provide sustained levels of security of water; and,
5. Identifying capital works that will improve the efficiency of the delivery of water through the entire system.
To learn more about the project, go to www.murrayheartlands.org or email info@murrayheartlands.org.
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