For countless generations, Traditional Owners have cared for Country and waterways, maintaining the health and flow of water and sustaining connections to place, each other, animals, culture, and Country. Water has been provided and maintained by the ancestors, and Traditional Owners today continue to have obligations to care for water and Country.
The Victorian Government recognises that Traditional Owners have never ceded rights to land and waters and that Traditional Owners should have the opportunity to determine where, when, and how they use water on Country. Since colonisation, these opportunities have been very limited. Water is Life seeks to achieve progress towards decisions on water management and planning relating to Traditional Owners being based on their free, prior, and informed consent. Traditional Owners are increasingly seeking to become joint decision-makers in water planning and management.
The Victorian Government is committed to working with Traditional Owners to increase access to water entitlements under current frameworks and increase cultural benefits from the way we store, deliver, and use water.
Water is Life will mean that Traditional Owners:
- can hold and manage water in culturally appropriate ways
- will be recognised as environmental water holders, and
- develop their own waterway management responsibilities, enable Traditional Owner groups to manage specific water landscapes, through being appointed as a waterway manager for particular locations (e.g., sites such as wetlands, billabongs and river reaches)
Just as ‘environmental flows’ are needed to sustain the ecological values of waterways, ‘cultural flows’ are needed to support the cultural traditions and community development needs of Traditional Owners. Similarly, cultural water also encompasses the economic uses of water . Cultural economies depend on sustainable water management to support activity such as eel aquaculture, fisheries, and harvests of weaving grasses, old man weed and other significant plant species. The cultural water paradigm enables the sustainable use of water for healthy Country, healthy mob, and cultural economies.
The data portal is a tool for Traditional Owners in caring for water landscapes, and managing their water resources just as it does others. It can help monitor how cultural water moves through waterways to deliver the outcomes intended.
While Registered Aboriginal Party (RAP) areas are only one way to recognise connection to water, it provides one way to explore flows, water quality and groundwater on country.
View in new tab using the below link, then zoom to explore where we monitor surface water in your RAP area. Or use the link below, zoom in, and then hover over sites to see the latest flows.
Reviewed 09 July 2024