WILI stakeholders invited MDBA chair Sir Angus Houston, chief executive Andrew McConville and Authority member Dr Jane Doolan to meet at UNE Tamworth to “put to them UNE’s value proposition on regional water matters”, the University of New England’s Professor Martin Thoms said.
Prof Thoms said WILI’s focus on the sustainability and resilience of headwaters (rivers’ sources), as well as its embeddedness in regional communities, were “unique and have huge potential for the Authority”.
“Community engagement and managing water in headwater landscapes will increasingly be strategically important to the Murray-Darling Basin, because of impacts on the total system and the complexities of increasing water competition,” Prof Thoms said.
“We can take our short courses and upscale for MDBA staff and others, and there is also relevant research that can be done with water management and education prototypes beta-tested in the Namoi, because we have the trust of the local community.”
WILI was formed in 2023 with the aim of better understanding and managing headwaters; and in turn improving catchments’ resilience to drought and floodi and boosting the quantity and quality of water available to all users.
It is a community-led alliance with 22 signatories, including UNE, local governments, Landcare groups, individual primary producers, and product or service providers.
As such, Prof Thoms said, WILI was well-placed to research, educate, collaborate, and engage communities on managing water in the landscape.
“We are constantly building WILI at a regional level, and we believe this can be upscaled to have an influence throughout the Murray-Darling Basin.”
Prof Thoms said UNE would start scoping the academy idea with the MDBA.
Meanwhile, WILI has launched two projects to build community capacity and knowledge: one upskilling women in new technologies to capture water information; and a storytelling project tracing the journey of a waterdrop through the Upper Namoi Valley.
