At the Watershed

In the US the term watershed is equivalent to the expression water catchment used in Australia and elsewhere. Watershed is also a term used metaphorically or figuratively to indicate a dividing line - a watershed issue - a line of division.

The word watershed came into use around the beginning of the 19th century. Then it represented the boundary between two river systems. It also referred to the surrounding hills and ridges and indicated the side of the hill or ridge where the rain fell and the water flowed. But in the US it has a wider meaning and refers to the wider river catchment, or river valley, that 'catches' the water drawing it towards the river.

Political editor from the Australian Newspaper, Dennis Shanahan(2006), put the issue quite differently when speaking about Australia's water crisis and water shortage.

'...at the heart of this crisis of water management is a complex web of conflicting and warring political and governmental interests, where states such as South Australia suffer at the mouth of the Murray while Queensland allows huge water harvesting for cotton at the head of the Darling system, and the Federal Government funds water initiatives without any power to force action.'

Water sources have become a political and ecological watershed.

Using the term watershed in its figurative sense, let's look at the watershed issue of logging the water catch-ments. The water or hydrological cycle is very clear, especially in the drawings of the cycle from primary school science classes. The rain is shown as falling onto the side of the hill which is treed or forested. The trees and land catch the water, channelling it to the ground water and eventually to the creeks, tributaries and flowing water.

A New Zealand report by Haikai Tane (2004) states that: 'Australia and New Zealand are caught in an intractable cultural dilemma.' The report declares that the continued industrialisation of water catchments for timber as well as surrounding development has 'led local communities in watershed catchments ... to believe that the long term degradation of watershed catchments is normal and natural. The degradation of watershed catchments in Australia and New Zealand will continue unabated so long as communities impose activities and infrastructure that destroys ecostructure.'

The issue is one of division and values, economic versus ecological, aesthetic versus industrial, spiritual versus profitability and resource use. Tane write 'that key cosmic roles have reversed, for industrial society sets goals like Gods, and Nature becomes its maid and servant.' This is so reminiscent of the issues raised in Carolyn Merchant's 1980 ground-breaking work, The Death of Nature as well as Val Plumwood's Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (1993).

Leading Australian water researcher Professor Peter Cullen makes the issue clear: 'Catchment land use is an important driver of river health, and river health seems commonly to be impaired when agricultural activities cover more than 30 per cent of a catchment area; although distance from the river and the health of the riparian vegetation can mediate these effects. The removal of native vegetation can markedly alter the hydrologic behaviour of a catchment.'

'As trees are removed, runoff commonly increases, as does the amount of water flowing below the root zone and entering groundwater, and this may lead to consequent waterlogging and salinity, although there may be a lag of 20 to 50 years before these impacts are obvious.'

'River and wetland health is assisted if the connections between a river channel and its floodplain and wetlands are maintained, allowing recovery from stress events. Deeper pools and wetlands may be important refuges that allow organisms to survive extreme high or low flow events. This is called resilience: the capacity to recover. The riparian zone has a profound impact on stream ecosystem processes.'

Re-making wetlands and deep pools, developing programs aimed at ecological resilience, regeneration of riparian zones, removal of noxious weed species and revitalization of native plant species - it seems all these things can help on the eco-front, but on the socio-political front, Haikai Tane declares we need a deeper understanding and a regeneration and revitalization of awareness, values and actions.

'What post-industrial society urgently needs is a new paradigm for understanding watershed catchments based on the integrity and connectivity of catchment habitats and landscape ecosystems.'

References
Cullen P, 2007, The Ecological Challenge of Water Reform, ATSE Focus, 145, http://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=1007
Merchant C, 1980, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution, San Francisco, Haper and Row.
Plumwood V, 1993, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, New York: Routledge.
Shanahan D, 2006, A Watershed on the Water Front, The Australian, Sept 26, 2006.
Tane H, 2004, Catchment Habitats and Landscape Ecosystems, Watershed Systems Ltd,Center for Catchment Ecology, http://watershed.net.nz/fpeandwm.htm

River Beauty, River Threat

River of Words is an annual event that gathers poetry and art inspired by rivers from children across the globe. This year the group chose a deeply insightful poem 'Rivers' written by seven year old José Perez from Florida as the winning riverpoem for 2007.

'Rivers splatter,
hitting rocks below.
But don’t be afraid,
there is poetry
deep inside each crevice.'

River of Words (ROW) has developed curriculum to assist teachers assist children to learn about river systems in their local bioregion. They encourage the development of local knowledge, as they say, 'to help you bring your watershed’s cultural and natural history alive for your students and community.'

On the ROW website is an article by the poet and deep ecologist Gary Snyder titled 'Coming into the Watershed'. Snyder writes:

'A watershed is a marvelous thing to consider: this process of rain falling, streams flowing and oceans evaporating causes every molecule of water on earth to make the complete trip once every two million years.' Two million years!

Two million years is length of the revolving water cycle and the ongoing relationship of living river to living ocean. This dynamic interconnection over such a long timeframe is now severely threatened. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has documented the litany of threat and disaster in it report World’s Top 10 Rivers at Risk' (2007). Two of the rivers singled out are the Murray and Darling rivers, the lifeblood of this nation.

In addition to structural and flow concerns, the report outlines that another major threat to the Murray-Darling river system comes from invasive fish (e.g. carp) and plant species. For example, it mentions that in Australia, the numbers of feral fish species emanating from the aquarium trade has increased from 22 to 34 in recent years.

The Brisbane River is small fry in comparison although it too has its fair share of feral threats - some of them human. Recent media reports have raised the ire of locals through their focus on one aggressive visitor to the river, the famed Bull Shark. Locals (interviewed by the media) are decidely edgy about what is considered 'one of the most dangerous sharks in the world' (ABC Catalyst, 2003).

What is so special about the Bull Shark is its remarkable ability to live in both fresh and salt water as well as the distances it travels upstream, up to 80 kms from Moreton Bay. Fishers say they can catch 8 to 10 sharks on a good day (see Ausfish, 2004). In 2006, the Courier Mail reported a commercial fisher netting 64 Bull Sharks in the Logan River, south of Brisbane. One fisher reported: 'The sharks were so thick, it was like the water was boiling.'

Earlier this year the Daily Telegraph (UK) carried an article about the dangers of Bull Sharks and how Queensland locals are dealing with them. I wonder who is monitoring these aggressive actions against these creatures.

'There are thousands upon thousands of them ... You could catch 10 a night if you wanted to. They'll bite your boat, chew your engine. People catch them as they're cooking their snags [sausages] and prawns on the barbie....

Another local commented that he's 'caught a dozen sharks from his sixth-floor balcony in between playing video games and watching television. 'We sit in the lounge room with the rods set up and play the PlayStation, waiting for the bites.' While a third fisher sets up his fishing gear then 'retreats to his living room to watch DVDs' until he hears there's a bite on the line.

The Daily Telegraph article continued: 'Fisheries officials say they are opposed to a shark cull and people must learn to live with the potential man-eaters. 'They have as much right to be in the water as we do,' said Jeff Krause, district manager of the Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol'.

But the concern is that there is little attention paid to this living room culling of these special animals. Are there bag limits on taking Sharks? And how is it patrolled when people are fishing from their sofas?

Yesterday my friend told me she'd seen dolphins upstream in the river and her children were very excited. What a river! Sharks, dolphins, beauty and danger. In the words of a seven year old from Florida:

'But don’t be afraid,
there is poetry
deep inside each crevice.'
José Perez