Revitalising Australia’s Estuaries

Colin Creighton, Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

In the late 1990’s scientists across Australia undertook an Australia-wide assessment of ~1,000 estuaries and embayments.  This was part of the National Land and Water Resources Audit.  Generally, the bigger the catchment and floodplain, the more degraded was the estuary and the more altered were the processes, flows and fluxes that characterise estuarine ecology. Urban, industrial and most importantly, agricultural development have been the fundamental causes of degradation of Australia’s estuaries and embayments. This degradation has had major impacts on biodiversity, commercial and recreational fishing and indeed the Australian lifestyle. Revitalising Australia’s Estuaries is a business case that builds on expertise and knowledge across Australia and provides an inventory of opportunities for repair, estimates the cost of repair and then through case studies demonstrates that an Australia wide investment of $350 million into estuarine rehabilitation will be returned in less than 5 years. This represents an outstanding return on investment, possibly far greater than most of Australia’s previous environmental repair initiatives and with clear outcomes across the Australian food, lifestyle and services economies.  Following a summary of Revitalising Australia’s Estuaries this presentation will speculate on next steps and the necessary paradigm shifts in our thinking as scientists and managers if we are to once again have productive, healthy estuaries and embayments.