Cultural projects have been designed to:
give First Nations people the opportunity to share their knowledge and information about the river
help to build awareness of cultural flows.
Pathways to Change
Project manager: Murray–Darling Basin Authority, in collaboration with Basin First Nations communities.
Goals:
- Engage with First Nations communities to gather knowledge and information.
- Build on the original Yarn on the River project, published in 2012, which played a key role in the development of the Basin Plan. This project was previously called Yarn on the River 2 but was renamed after engagement with First Nations groups.
- Assess what has changed and what needs to be revisited during the Basin Plan Review since the original Yarn.
Anticipated outcomes: Assessment of progress of First Nations’ priorities, values and issues under the Basin Plan to inform future planning.
Outputs to date: The first step was to review what was said during the Yarn of the River 2012 project. You can read the review on the Yarn on the River webpage.
We then commissioned an independent report to collate publicly available information of First Nations aspirations and evaluate the contribution of the Basin Plan towards progressing these goals. The draft report was taken to workshops with First Nations people across the Basin for their feedback and input.
You can read the final Looking Back to Move Forward report on our website.
Identification of cultural flow requirements in the Basin
Project manager: Murray–Darling Basin Authority, in collaboration with Basin First Nations communities.
Goal: Build on the recommendations and suggested next steps of the National Cultural Flows Research Project, with a focus on continuing conversations on cultural flows with the wider Basin community.
Anticipated outcomes: Increase awareness of cultural flows and their importance to First Nations water management and improved ability to incorporate cultural flow considerations into Basin Plan modelling, strategies and planning.
Outcomes for First Nations people
Project manager: Murray–Darling Basin Authority with input from First Nations’ organisations and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Goal: Collate multiple indicators and lines of evidence linking Basin Plan actions and broader water reform policies to social and economic outcomes for First Nations people.
Anticipated outcomes: Deliver evidence of the direct and indirect benefits for First Nations peoples in relation to the Basin Plan’s environmental outcomes and improve our understanding of what drives the extent and trends of those benefits.
Digitising and interpreting the Darling (Baaka) Scrolls
Project manager: Murray–Darling Basin Authority, working alongside Baaka elders.
Goal: Digitise a historical 1880’s paddle steamer river navigation scroll of the Darling (Baaka) River and combine with Baaka knowledge to investigate how the Darling (Baaka) River has changed over the last 140 years.
Anticipated outcomes: Build a body of local knowledge, attributes and values (including cultural, historical and environmental) aligned to historic features on the Darling (Baaka) paddle steamer river navigation scrolls.
Last updated: 29 April 2025