Imagine a drinkable, swimmable, fishable Richmond River? That is the aim of the Richmond Riverkeepers Association that recently launched at the RSL Club in Ballina, at the mouth of the Richmond River.
Recent reports have found that a mix of pesticides (herbicides, fungicides and insecticides) are at dangerous levels in the Richmond River. It turns out this is just confirming something that has been known for a long time, the question is why has the Richmond River remained in such a deplorable state?
‘The Richmond River is one of the most studied rivers,’ explained Dr Kristin den Exter, Richmond Riverkeeper Association Committee member.
‘There have been reports on it since the late 1940s but the health of the river continues to go backwards,’ she told The Echo.
‘We need to bring people together to work out what we can do differently and together to improve the Richmond River’s health. This catchment is one of the unhealthiest catchments on the east coast.’
Born of the 2022 floods
The vision for the Richmond Riverkeeper originated in a forum at Southern Cross University after the devastating floods in 2022. Since then, the Richmond Riverkeeper has officially joined the Global Waterkeeper Alliance and launched the first citizen science driven Ecological Health Report Card for the Richmond River.
Professor Amanda Reichelt-Brushett from Southern Cross University is the Richmond River inaugural Riverkeeper and told the meeting that, ‘Joining the Global Waterkeeper Alliance is significant and links us to riverkeepers across Australia and the world, joining others who are determined to see that our Rivers benefit from better Custodianship and are drinkable, swimmable and fishable once more.’
Dr den Exter said that the Richmond Roverkeepers are looking at a catchment wide monitoring program as part of their 2030 Vision.
‘We want to know that our creeks and rivers are healthy again. The principles are drinkable, swimmable and fishable. We know that our rivers are healthy if we can drink, swim and fish in our rivers. At the moment we can’t do any of that.’
Amanda agreed saying that ‘We know we will have made a difference if we see the return of a healthy oyster fishery in the lower catchment and the return of fish like the eastern freshwater cod in the upper reaches.’
Become a riverkeeper
‘This is not work anyone person can do alone,’ said Dr den Exter.
‘We are looking to the community, government, and industry on how we can work together. We will look at what is not working and work out what we can do differently. Everybody can be a riverkeeper so we are encouraging people to join us.’
Contact Richmond Riverkeepers Association here.
Broad community support
The Richmond Riverkeeper is receiving support from a range of organisations, industry and government bodies to progress with the task of making the Richmond River, sub-catchments and tributaries of the Richmond River catchment healthy, ecologically sustainable, respected by policy and decision-makers, managed actively, and valued by the community.
They include:
- Alluvium Consulting
- Border Ranges Richmond Valley Landcare Network
- Jagun Alliance Aboriginal Corporation
- Living Lab Northern Rivers
- Lion and Lamb
- Namabundah Farm, Bundjalung Tribal Society
- Northern Rivers Community Foundation
- Ozfish Unlimited
- Positive Change for Marine Life
- Revive the Northern Rivers
- Richmond Landcare Inc.
- Southern Cross University
- SJH Kreations
- Global Waterkeeper Alliance
- Wardell Core
- Whian Whian Landcare
- Wilsons River Landcare
- Yarra Riverkeeper
No disrespect but an organisation like this is formed periodically and absolutely nothing has improved, in fact it’s got worse.
So how will they do something different to improve the health of the Richmond?