Fitzroy River: the push to prevent a repeat of the Murray-Darling basin 'disaster'

The WA government committed to establishing a Fitzroy River national park, but that hasn't stopped potential irrigation plans

The Fitzroy is the largest river in Western Australia, snaking more than 700km from the east Kimberley to meet the ocean at King Sound. In its wettest years it can carry 50 times the water of Sydney harbour.

On a drying continent, that is liquid gold. But while pastoralists and mining magnates circle the pumps, traditional owners living throughout the Fitzroy River valley have issued a warning: do this wrong, and you could repeat the disasters of the Murray-Darling basin. That drying, over-stressed catchment at the opposite coroner of Australia is a warning of what happens when corporate agricultural interests and partisan politics override ecosystem-wide concerns and knowledge.