Healthy Rivers Dubbo, a leading local community group providing a strong voice for our local rivers, organised tours of some of Dubbo’s lost wetlands to mark World Wetlands Day on Sunday.
The crowd, including Mayor Josh Black, heard about the amazing birds, plants, and fish of our area and the impact significant wetland loss has had on nature.
Local groups contributing to the day included:
· Dubbo Field Naturalists and Conservation Society
· Dubbo Rivercare Inc
· Dubbo Environment Group
· NSW Fisheries
· Ozfish Ltd
· Healthy Rivers Dubbo
Convenor, Healthy Rivers Dubbo Mel Gray said: “There were wetlands all over the floodplains of the Macquarie / Wambuul River. Sadly they have been drained, cleared, and denied water over the last 150 years.
“Wetlands are super concentrated biodiversity hotspots... 40 per cent of the world’s biodiversity is found in wetlands. Yet the world has lost 70 per cent of its wetlands since 1900."
The Macquarie/Wambuul Valley is home to the spectacular Ramsar-listed Macquarie Marshes, a rich tapestry of wetlands that support hundreds of thousands of nesting water birds in flood times.
“The Macquarie Marshes are under a lot of pressure from the over-allocation of water to cotton irrigation, having shrunk from one million hectares to about 200,000 hectares since the construction of Burrendong Dam," said Mel Gray.
