The Ovens River rises in the Victorian Alps where it is linked to significant freshwater meadows and marshes. At Wangaratta it is joined by the King River and it meets the Murray near the top of Lake Mulwala.

The Ovens River is one of the last largely unregulated rivers in the Murray Darling Basin and is particularly important as a reference against which to assess the state of other lowland rivers in the region. Since Europeanisation, industries including grazing, gold mining, tobacco and plantation forestry, have bought different types of workers with new needs to the river.
There are areas where the riparian vegetation has been replaced by willows, there have been significant water quality issues and there are far too many pest fish.

These are the traditional lands of the Bangerang people and their neighbours the Taungurung and Yorta Yorta peoples. They have fished the river and surrounding waterways and hunted the wetlands and the ebb and flow of water guided their travels and featured in their stories.

(Source: Frawley, J., Nichols, S., Goodall, H. and Baker, E. 2011. Ovens: Talking fish, making connections with the rivers of the Murray‐Darling Basin. Murray‐Darling Basin Authority, Canberra.)]]>
Map image attribution: Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Talking Fish Project see details...]]> http://geonode.research.uts.edu.au/layers/geonode%3Afrawley2012page122]]> View or download from publisher...]]>

The Goulburn River rushes westward down from the steep hills and mountains of the Great Dividing Range toward Seymour. The river then turns northward and meanders through hills and plains until the river meets the Murray upstream of Echuca.

These are the traditional lands of the Taungurung, Bangerang and Yorta Yorta peoples. However, the Goulburn River today is not the river the Taungurung, Bangerang and Yorta Yorta once knew and fished.

Water is now stored in Lake Eildon and controlled by Goulburn Weir at Nagambie. Flows peak in summer to meet irrigation needs and drops off in winter/spring. These changes mean there are a lot less fish than there were. Before the turn of the twentieth century, there are many stories of catching Macquarie perch, Murray cod, trout cod, blackfish and yellowbelly. There were no carp, no redfin and no trout. Now, there are very few Macquarie perch and no trout cod.

(Source: Frawley, J., Nichols, S., Goodall, H. and Baker, E. (2011). Goulburn: Talking fish, making connections with the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin. Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Canberra.)]]>
Map image attribution: Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Talking Fish Project see details...]]> http://geonode.research.uts.edu.au/layers/geonode%3Afrawley2012page102]]> View or download from publisher...]]>

The Murray River is the boundary between NSW and Victoria. The river both defines boundaries and unites them with the waters that sustain townships, irrigation and the floodplain forests, including the 70,000ha of the iconic Barmah and Millewa Forest. The river and its floodplain are the traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta and Bangerang people. The Murray is a very different river to the one the Yorta Yorta and Bangerang peoples once knew and fished.

Today, flows in the river are controlled by Hume Dam – the first of 15 structures on the main channel. By the time it reaches Corowa, the Murray has changed from a small clear stream to a fast flowing river, its waters tea brown. Near Yarrawonga the Murray enters Lake Mulwala, where the skeletons of old drowned red gums are a stark memorial to the way the river’s changed.

(Source: Frawley, J., Nichols, S., Goodall, H. and Baker, E. 2011. Murray: Talking fish, making connections with the rivers of the Murray‐Darling Basin. Murray‐Darling Basin Authority, Canberra.)]]>
Map image attribution: Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Talking Fish Project see details...]]> http://geonode.research.uts.edu.au/layers/geonode%3Afrawley2012page080]]> View or download from publisher...]]>