Professor Peter Cullen – Freshwater
Ecologist, Canberra

We’ve come through periods with the proposals for World Heritage listing and irrigation on the Cooper, and the community has come together.

The most exciting thing has been the growth of the capacity in the community, and in particular individuals who’ve been providing leadership over that time, to really work in a catchment context. I think it’s been tremendously successful.”

“We had people from three states and the Territory coming together, gaining an awareness of the issues from one end of the catchments to the other, and working together, toward a common goal.

Some of those old barriers and suspicions have gone. There has been an awakening by the scientific community that local people have a high level of information and knowledge about their country, and the local community recognises the benefit of sharing information and knowledge.

The Basin is now firmly on both the State and Federal agendas. We have a greatly increased awareness of, and knowledge about, our natural systems, what drives them, how they work, but more needs to be done on the social side of things.”

We have the Coordinating Group as the vehicle for the community to tackle the bigger picture issues.

It needed a major threat (World Heritage listing) to galvanise the community into action, to galvanise them into being more proactive in natural resource management.

There has been great support for the process from individuals, companies and governments, and that support remains.”

There are strong connections and good working relationships between people across various sectors – industries, local communities, government officers and scientists. The staff of the Lake Eyre Basin community initiative have played a significant role in bringing people together, and in promoting knowledge and awareness raising.

There is a greater recognition within the Basin that you can achieve so much more in partnership – as reflected in the community’s planning processes, and coordination of its weed and feral animal programs.

The community initiative has laid the foundations for cooperation and a joint approach between the new regional bodies to deliver programs for the benefit of the Basin.”

Peter Douglas –
Pastoralist, Jundah.

The community of the Basin is also more aware of their own region and their own influence. Through the Lake Eyre Basin process, they now have organisation (strong catchment committees and regional communities) and representation. They also now have some political clout and a voice with government.

Another important area is sustainability. The process has promoted increased interest in sustainable production as the future of the Basin and there is now a markedly increased level of awareness of this, and participation, in a formal sense, by most people in the catchment.”

They established and connected community and government processes so that each could influence and learn from the other. In some instances this meant the people on the ground leading the government, particularly in regards to working across political and administrative boundaries, which are meaningless to rivers, feral animals and the like.

The Lake Eyre Basin process encouraged people to think of themselves as part of a wider landscape and diverse community, and with this came increased responsibility to the land and other people. We learnt more about listening, particularly to those with whom we disagree.

To me it is a remarkable achievement that community members (volunteers) have been willing to continue to work so hard to maintain the Lake Eyre Basin process in times of uncertainty. This shows strong ownership and enviable individual and group capacity. If that were the only achievement it would be enough.”