Natural History of the Coorong, Lower Lakes, and Murray Mouth Region (yarluwar-ruwe) This book is available as a free fully searchable ebook from www.adelaide.edu.au/press Occasional publications of the Royal Society of South Australia Inc. Ideas & Endeavours: a History of the Natural Sciences in South Australia, published 1986. Natural History of the Adelaide Region, published 1976, reprinted 1988. Natural History of Eyre Peninsula, published 1985. Natural History of the Flinders Ranges, published 1996. Natural History of Kangaroo Island, second edition, published 2002. Natural History of the North East Deserts, published 1990. Natural History of the South East, published 1983, reprinted 1995. Natural History of Gulf St Vincent, published 2008. Natural History of Riverland and Murraylands, published 2009. Natural History of Spencer Gulf, published 2014. Natural History of the Coorong, Lower Lakes, and Murray Mouth Region (yarluwar-ruwe) Editors Luke Mosley, Qifeng Ye, Scoresby Shepherd, Steve Hemming, Rob Fitzpatrick Royal Society of South Australia Inc. Published in Adelaide by University of Adelaide Press Barr Smith Library The University of Adelaide South Australia 5005 [email protected] www.adelaide.edu.au/press on behalf of the Royal Society of South Australia Inc. © 2018 Royal Society of South Australia. This work is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. This licence allows for the copying, distribution, display and performance of this work for non-commercial purposes providing the work is clearly attributed to the copyright holders. Address all inquiries to the Publisher at the above address. For the full Cataloguing-in-Publication data please contact the National Library of Australia: [email protected]. ISBN (paperback) 978-1-925261-80-6 ISBN (ebook: pdf) 978-1-925261-81-3 Senior Editor: Rebecca Burton, and the volume editors were assisted by Erinne Stirling. Book design: Midland Typesetters. Cover design: Emma Spoehr. Cover photo: Sabine Dittman, looking across to Ngulung from Tultherang (Pelican Point). FOREWORD The Coorong and Lakes Alexandrina and Albert Wetland was designated a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention in 1985. The wetland is also one of Australia’s most important and unique wetland systems and supports significant ecological, cultural, recreational, heritage and economic values. It is the only estuary within the Murray- Darling Basin and is a designated icon site under The Living Murray initiative. The site supports a vast array of native flora and fauna, including internationally and nationally significant species and communities. From late 1996 to mid-2010 much of southern Australia, including the Coorong and Lakes region, experienced a prolonged period of dry conditions — the Millennium Drought. This had a devastating impact on the ecology of the Coorong and Lakes and on the wellbeing of our local communities, including the Ngarrindjeri people. While we are still seeing long-lasting ill effects, particularly within the southern lagoon of the Coorong, the drought brought the plight of the River Murray to the national agenda and helped to highlight the importance of end-of-system flows and water for the environment. The adoption of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and corresponding recovery and delivery of water for the environment, have resulted in improvements to the ecology of the Coorong and Lakes Alexandrina and Albert. While many improvements are evident, some aspects of the ecology have experienced sustained change, most notably submergent vegetation communities in the Coorong and some waterbirds, particularly migratory shorebirds, which have not yet recovered to pre-drought levels. Providing the leadership that is required to protect, sustain and revitalise the Coorong is a personal quest which I am determined to advance during my time as South Australia’s Minister for Environment and Water. I would like to acknowledge the dedication of South Australia’s scientific community, the members of whom are tireless advocates for this wetland. The long-term data that have been collected by these people and groups have been instrumental in our negotiations to secure water for the environment and in delivering on-ground works to protect the Coorong and Lakes Alexandrina and Albert. The South Australian Government is committed to using the best scientific, cultural and local knowledge to manage this important wetland. I commend the Royal Society of South Australia for its work to collate decades of monitoring and research data into this important publication on South Australia’s most iconic estuary. David Speirs MP Minister for Environment and Water (September 2018) DEDICATION This book is dedicated to Tom Trevorrow and Henry Jones. Thomas Edwin Trevorrow (1954-2013) was renowned and respected for his lifelong commitment to the health of his beloved Ruwe/Ruwar (Country, spirt, body and all living things). Trained by his people as an educator and political leader, he worked closely with Ngarrindjeri and non-Ngarrindjeri to create a healthy future for all, based on respect for the lands, water and all living things. He qualified as a park ranger, but chose instead to work tirelessly for his people across many Ngarrindjeri organisations and committees, including the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority. As a gifted orator, an educator at Camp Coorong, and a Ngarrindjeri leader, he ensured that the knowledge of his ancestors was valued, understood and respected. This led to the widespread incorporation of Ngarrindjeri understandings of Murrundi (River Murray) and the Lower Lakes and Kurangk (the Coorong) in natural resource management policy and practice. With other Ngarrindjeri leaders, such as George Trevorrow and Matthew Rigney, he negotiated groundbreaking agreements (Kungun Ngarrindjeri Yunnan — listen to Ngarrindjeri people) with non-Indigenous organisations and governments and these have provided the framework for just relationships and a sustainable Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth. Henry Jones (1941-2014) was a fourth-generation fisherman in the Lower Lakes and Coorong and, together with his wife Gloria, a passionate and highly successful advocate for protection of this region. Henry witnessed how declining river flows over many decades had led to poor health of the local environment and fisheries. He became arguably the most influential community person pushing for the implementation of a national plan to save both the environment of the Murray-Darling Basin and, through that, the livelihoods of thousands of people who rely on it. His emotional plea for national reform to save the ailing system, on the lawns of Parliament House (accompanied by his tinnie and barbeque, whilst cooking fish) in Canberra in March 2012, was so powerful that it was credited by politicians of all persuasions as a game-changer in the long fight for River Murray reform. Henry was humble and quietly spoken, but his influence was so great that he was the first person who was called when then Federal Water Minister Tony Burke signed the historic Murray-Darling Basin agreement in November 2012; and he was invited to be present in Parliament with Gloria when the Basin Plan was passed into law in 2013. His numerous other achievements included helping shape a world-first environmental management plan for the fisheries as a whole in the Lower Lakes and Coorong and helping the local fishing community to achieve a Marine Stewardship Council Certification for sustainable fishing practices. Henry was a finalist in the South Australia Senior Australian of the Year Award 2014 for his work in water conservation. His lifelong dedication and fight for protecting the River Murray was recognised in 2013, when he became the first member of the community to receive the River Murray Medal from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. In 2015, Henry was also posthumously appointed a member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to the conservation of the Lower Murray River and to the community. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, we thank all the authors who have contributed to an excellent series of chapters in this book. We thank the Department for Environment and Water for being a major sponsor of the book, and the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) and University of Adelaide for providing additional funding support. The Editors also thank the following individuals, who have contributed to the book’s development: Andrew Beal, Richard Brown, Jason Higham, Rebecca Quinn, Megan Lewis and Erinne Stirling. We recognise the leadership and partnership of Ngarrindjeri leaders and elders past and present and their commitment to ensuring healthy Ngarrindjeri Ruwe/Ruwar (Country). INTRODUCTION The Editorial Committee welcomes you to this Natural History Series book, Natural History of the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth (CLLMM) region. The book is divided into four main parts, with individual chapters within each part outlined below. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW (PART 1) The book begins with Ngarrindjeri leaders such as Tom Trevorrow, George Trevorrow and Matthew Rigney (all deceased) providing a valuable introduction to the history and culture of the Ngarrindjeri traditional owners of the CLLMM land and waters, with a contextual