Landmark scientific report highlights importance of wild rivers - 27/08/07

In The Nature of Northern Australia, four eminent Australian scientists – Dr John Woinarski, Professory Brendan Mackey, Professor Henry Nix and Dr Barry Traill – reveal the global conservation importance of Northern Australia. They show that, unlike much of southern Australia, nature remains in abundance in the North, with the world’s largest and healthiest expanse of tropical savanna and some of the world’s healthiest wild rivers.

According to the authors:

“Northern Australia stands out as one of the few very large natural areas remaining on Earth: alongside such global treasures as the Amazon rainforests, the boreal conifer forests of Alaska, and the polar wilderness of Antarctica” (p.1)

“Hydro-ecology”, a buzz word used to describe the natural flows and connections of free-flowing rivers and wetlands, is critical to the health of Northern Australia, according to the authors. This is because water is such an important feature in a region dominated by long seasonal droughts, with short, sharp flooding every year. The wild rivers and wetlands are the arteries and oases that bring life to wildlife and plants and many communities.

Luckily in Northern Australia, the “hydro-ecology” has so far been largely undamaged:

“From a continental perspective, it is clear that Northern Australia retains the largest expanses of intact rivers and catchments in the continent” (p.56)

But is it vitally important that we protect our wild rivers now to ensure this encouraging fact remains true.

The authors also show the while the natural values of the North and places like Cape York Peninsula are immense, they are under threat by destructive development, highly invasive weeds and pests, poor fire management, climate change and a lack of resources to look after country.

The Wilderness Society is leading the charge to protect Northern Australia’s wild rivers from these threats and compel Governments to increase resources to communities to care for their rivers.

Download The Nature of Northern Australia for free here.