Murray Darling Basin Draft Native Fish Managent Strategy Online Feedback
Submitted by SARFAC Friday, 6th December 2002

The Murray Darling Basin Commission has now posted an online feedback form on the Draft Native Fish Management Strategy for the Murray Darling Basin 2002-2012.

The draft is the first holistic, basin-wide approach to managing the recovery of our native fish. The Draft addresses its goals and targets through actions designed to achieve thirteen objectives through the following six driving actions:

1)	Rehabilitating fish habitat. Targeting problems such as the removal of snags, sedimentation, reductions in available water, unseasonable flows, reduction in occurrence of small to medium sized floods, water quality. Establishing demonstration reaches where with community assistance intensive restoration can occur that demonstrate the benefits of fish habitat restoration.
2)	Protecting fish habitat. The creation of aquatic reserves will facilitate the first realistic protection of freshwater ecosystems from the impacts of inappropriate land and water use management while allowing recreational fishing to continue in areas other than those where fishing is currently not allowed e.g. areas where significant remaining endangered species populations such as Trout Cod exist.
3)	Managing riverine structures. Addressing the impacts of in stream structures (dams weirs etc.) such as barriers to migration and thermal pollution, on native fish through constructing fishways and managing flows to more closely reflect natural flow and temperature regimes.
4)	Controlling alien fish species. We have 11 alien species in the Murray Darling system with carp accounting for 90% of the biomass in some reaches. Other species such as tilapia are knocking on the door, if they enter the Murray Darling Basin they may make the impacts of carp seem insignificant. In one of a number of proposed actions under this Draft Native Fish Management Strategy the Murray Darling Basin Commission has already committed to invest millions to develop “daughterless carp tchnology”.
5)	Protecting threatened native fish species. With 16 of the thirty five species found in the basin currently listed as threatened two of which are listed as critically endangered under various state and Commonwealth legislation the need for protection is obvious
6)	Managing fish translocation and stocking. Addressing impacts on the long term survival our native fish populations such as loss of genetic diversity through inbreeding of stock fish and the translocation of species into areas outside their natural habitat.

The online survey is designed for those who have read and understand some or preferably all of the background documents which can be found at this address. Once you have read at least one of the documents go to http://www.mdbc.gov.au and follow the link to the Native Fish Strategy online feedback form.