Indigenous Owners Want Better Protection of Lake Eyre Basin

Where Cooper Creek in far south-west Queensland meets Lake Eyre in South Australia. (Nicole Bond)

 

Traditional owners from the Lake Eyre Basin are calling for better protection of the catchment.

The Lake Eyre Basin covers one-sixth of the continent and is mostly fed by the Georgina and Diamantina Rivers and the Cooper Creek, waterways which the Queensland Government is proposing to protect under Wild Rivers legislation.

The legislation will block large-scale irrigation and open cut mining.

Spokesman Scott Gorringe says people who recently attended an Indigenous Lake Eyre Basin forum recently would like to see the legislation extended over the entire basin.

"The Aboriginal traditional owners from the other states, in NSW, Northern Territory and South Australia, really support what the Queensland Government is trying to achieve out of Wild Rivers, which is protection of those waters forever and for our future generations."

ABC Rural