GAWLER RIVER RIPARIAN RESTORATION

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (15:20): My question is to the Minister for Water and the River Murray. Will the minister inform the chamber of the work of the Gawler River Riparian Restoration group?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (15:21): I thank the honourable member for his very important question and acknowledge how much he gets around this state. I would like to inform the chamber about the work of the Gawler River Riparian Restoration group, a small group of passionate locals who, with the support of the state government and the broader community, are working to bring the Gawler River back to health.

With the support of a Natural Resources Management Achiever Community Grant from the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges NRM Board, the group recently produced a short video which provides a valuable guide to watercourse restoration and local environmental action for other community groups to follow. The video also chronicles two significant local river restoration projects.

The first significant project is the Gawler River Restoration Project. This project has seen landholders and community members volunteering their time and ingenuity, with funding and technical support being provided by the regional NRM board, local council, and state and federal governments. The group's efforts are restoring a reach of the Gawler River near the town to a functioning indigenous ecosystem and an asset the community can connect with and take pride in. In a complementary initiative, the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, in cooperation with SA Water, has been delivering a program of environmental flows to improve the health of the Gawler River catchment downstream of the South Para Reservoir. Similar environmental flows are also being supplied in the Torrens and Onkaparinga rivers, I am advised.

By providing environmental water at critical times, we have been able to improve the health of watercourse vegetation, allow many aquatic animals to complete their life cycles and refresh in-stream pools critical for so many native animals. I am told that sampling has shown that the number and diversity of native fish in the area has improved greatly as a result of these flows.

The second development highlighted in the group's video is the Urban Rivers project, which is helping increase Gawler's liveability through better connections to the wonderful rivers that are so central to it. I am pleased to advise that this project has established bike paths along the river corridors and unique low-level bridges providing quick, safe and sustainable travel across town as well as access to the leafy and tranquil river environments.

With the help of the NRM Achievers Grant, the group will make around 130 copies of the DVD available to councils, schools, Landcare groups, natural resource centres, Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources officers, revegetation and weed contractors, libraries and media. Further copies of the DVD will be available through the Gawler Regional Natural Resource Centre, I am told.

Both the Urban Rivers and Gawler River Restoration projects have involved financial support and cooperation from diverse partners, and it behoves me to list them. They are: the Gawler Regional Natural Resource Centre, the Gawler River Riparian Restoration, the Gawler Environment and Heritage Association, Conservation Volunteers Australia, the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board, the South Australian government, the federal government, the Gawler council, volunteer groups and local schools. I congratulate them all heartily.