A future for the Coorong and Lower Lakes

Abstract

The Coorong and Lower Lakes are listed as a Wetland of International Significance under the Ramsar Convention. This wetland system was nominated because of the diversity of wetlands that were supported: fresh, estuarine and hypermarine; and because of the importance of the area to vast numbers of water birds: ducks, swans, pelicans, terns, grebes, and migratory sandpipers and endemic shorebirds (stilts, avocets). But the region has changed and is about to change again: a consequence of failing to allocate the necessary maintenance and environmental flows to the River Murray. The Coorong has not received upstream flows of freshwater for at least six years and in just the last two years the water levels in the Lakes have dropped to well below sea-level unprecedented. These changes threaten to eliminate the key features that made this system of international significance.