Indigenous Barkandji Community Feels Effects Of Murray-Darling RIver Demise

WILCANNIA, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 04: Barkandji elder Cyril Hunter reacts as he talks about the Barka-Darling river on March 04, 2019 in Wilcannia, Australia. The Barkandji people - meaning the river people - live in Wilcannia, a small town in the Central Darling Shire in north western New South Wales. The Barkandji are part of the group who signed an open letter to the NSW Water Minister Niall Blair highlighting the social and environmental impacts throughout the Murray-Darling Basin due to floodplain harvesting. The letter, signed by Indigenous groups, graziers, environmental groups and the former commonwealth environmental water holder urged the minister to stop Murray-Darling irrigators from “harvesting” overland flows after rain events. The practice of floodplain harvesting is unregulated and unmonitored in NSW, but is now diverting huge volumes of water in the northern basin of the Murray-Darling system into irrigation storages. While the exact impact of floodplain harvesting is unknown, it is thought to be a major contributor to a huge drop in flows in the Darling river or "Barka" as it is known to Barkandji people, which has been highlighted following the deaths of hundreds of thousands of fish at Menindee in three separate events earlier this year. In Wilcannia, the Barkandji elders claim the alleged water mismanagement is killing the river and with it, their people. Without the river the Barkandji say they are nothing. (Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)