Murray-Darling River - Key To Australian Farming - Drying Up Rapidly

[hatrack]

EDIT

Along the river's banks two thirds of Australia’s crops are grown. The vast plains that are irrigated by its muddy waters produce most of Australia’s fruit and vegetables, much of its maize and even some of its rice.

The Murray River is also the governments shame as years of talk have amounted to little action to avert the current catastrophe". The river once ran wild, regularly inundating large swathes of the plains that now are desert. Overused and abused, But today the Murray River is more famous for the exact opposite. For more than 200 days of the year this once mighty river no longer makes it to the sea. It's like the Rhine petering out in central Germany, or the Nile drying up in northern Sudan.

Why? In large part humans are to blame, in particular Australia’s governments, who have long believed nature should be bent to man's will. The river has been overused and abused. Dozens of dams block its flow, drawing off huge quantities of water to grow cotton in the desert. Cotton not for home industries, but for export raw, to flood saturated markets, a business noone profits from.

Today the whole region teeters on the edge of disaster. Global warming will shortly push it over the edge. In the next 50 years temperatures in Australia are expected to rise by 3 to 4C. As they do, the already arid climate will dry further. Leaving Australians to cling to an ever narrowing band of vegetation. The drought that has afflicted the region for the last six years would become permanent. Climate change will be realized for what it is perminant change. The whole basin will dry up. The impact on crops would be dramatic. Scientists predict yields in Australia’s main growing region could fall by 40% to 60%. This would force Australia to import huge quantities of basic food items.

EDIT

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/12/134459.php


EDIT

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/12/134459.php

[acmavm]

1. The next wars will all be fought for...

water.

And who is buying up the water rights in this country? Carlyle Group and other big mega-corps.

This earth will not be a pretty place in a matter of a very few years.

[Kolesar]

2. Good messaging there about the unsustainable cash-crop cotton

being a waste of water.