The Concerned Waterways Alliance has made a submission to the proposed National Environmental Standard for Community Engagement from Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water calling for it to better recognise that rivers, wetlands, aquifers, floodplains and estuaries are connected living systems.
https://consult.dcceew.gov.au/national-environmental-standard-for-community-engagement
CWA supports a legally enforceable national standard, but we argue that the draft definition of “affected persons” is too narrowly focused on people living near a project site. Waterway impacts can travel upstream, downstream and through groundwater, floodplains, wetlands and coastal receiving waters. The communities and organisations with relevant knowledge may therefore be located well beyond the immediate project area.
The submission draws on the Single Living Entity concept, which understands a waterway as one interconnected natural system rather than a series of separate sites or reaches. For waterway-related proposals, engagement should therefore embrace the living system from headwaters and tributaries through wetlands, aquifers and estuaries rather than stopping at the project boundary.
CWA recommended that relevant river, wetland, catchment, estuary, groundwater and coastal groups be identified and engaged wherever they sit within that connected system.
The submission also calls for earlier engagement that can influence project design and location, access to the technical information needed for informed submissions, longer consultation periods for complex proposals, publication of submissions and responses, and ongoing engagement where approvals involve long-term monitoring or adaptive management.
Meaningful engagement must reflect the ecological reality of waterways: connected, cumulative and living systems whose values and impacts extend well beyond the footprint of an individual proposal.
The full submission can be downloaded below.