Benchmarking Indigenous water holdings in the Murray-Darling Basin: a crucial step towards developing water rights targets for Australia

Abstract

Australia's ability to address Indigenous claims for water rights and to advance both national Indigenous and water policy is hampered by a lack of information on Indigenous water entitlements and the communities that hold them. This paper contributes to the policy agenda of increasing Indigenous water rights by developing a method that quantifies and enables spatially explicit comparison of Indigenous-held water within and across Murray-Darling Basin jurisdictions. We construct baselines for (i) Indigenous population (ii) Indigenous holdings of surface water entitlements, and (iii) Indigenous holdings of groundwater entitlements across water management units in the Basin. We estimate that Indigenous surface water holdings constitute no more than 0.17% of the equivalent permitted take across the entire Basin. Groundwater entitlements held by Indigenous entities constitute 0.02% of all available groundwater. The approximate market value of these water entitlements is A$19.2 million in 2015-16 terms, which equates to 0.12% of the total $16.5 billion market value. In contrast, 5.3% of the Murray-Darling Basin population is Indigenous, a proportion that is rapidly increasing. The production of estimates of this type, and Indigenous control of the data needed to generate them, are first steps in a reparations process that can contribute towards Indigenous water justice.

Indigenous Water Engineering and Aquaculture Systems in Australia: The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape and Baiame’s Ngunnhu (the Brewarrina Aboriginal Fish Traps)

“…Increasing variability and shifts in climate due to global warming, along with high water demand and extractions throughout the river basin, are impacting flow regimes, ecological health and fish availability, and hence the ability of traditional custodians to care for the Country and these sacred sites. This is particularly the case in the Barwon and Barka-Darling rivers, part of Australia's famous and over-allocated Murray-Darling River basin, where Indigenous water injustice through a lack of allocations is particularly acute in relation to colonial-settler allocations (Hartwig et al 2021). Reforms to support justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders across Australia are also gaining significant attention following the Statement from the Heart signed in Uluru (PCoA 2018) and the 2023 Constitutional Referendum (not passed) on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, although this is only one part of the proposed changes required for justice for First People, which include the need for Treaty, Truth and Makaratta (reparations and "walking with a limp") (Loughrey 2022;PCoA 2018;Linder and Hobbs 2023).…”

Watering of wetlands on Indigenous Country in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia

“…In 2020, the Victorian government began formally handing back cultural water to Aboriginal Corporations and is investing in increasing the amount of water that Indigenous groups have ownership over (O'Donnell et al 2021). However, Indigenous organisations in the Basin currently control a small and decreasing volume of cultural water (Hartwig et al 2020(Hartwig et al , 2021. Therefore, there is scope for these efforts to expand.…”

“…Water rights are central to self-determination and control of territory by Indigenous peoples (Robison et al 2018;Hartwig et al 2020). There are ~55 Traditional Owner groups in the Basin (Murray-Darling Basin Authority 2018), comprising 10.5% of the total population in the northern Basin and 3.4% in the south, and growing rapidly at a rate of ~3.8% year −1 (Hartwig et al 2021).…”

“…Indigenous water holdings represent 0.22% of available water in the New South Wales Murray-Darling Basin and only 0.17% of permitted Basin-wide surface-water take (Hartwig et al 2021). Water held by an Indigenous organisation is regarded as a financial asset and may be disposed of if that organisation becomes insolvent.…”

The politics of adaptive governance: water reform, climate change, and First Nations’ justice in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin

“…Water reforms have sought to address historical over-allocation of water for irrigation to restore the ecological condition of rivers and wetlands, leading to a conflict around the trade-offs between water for irrigation and the environment. These trade-offs will be exacerbated by climate change that is projected to dramatically reduce water supply (Alexandra 2021) and efforts to redress historical injustices to First Nations, who hold less than 1% of the water entitlements across the basin despite making up 5% of the population (Hartwig et al 2021).…”