Australia is the driest inhabited continent on Earth yet is has been the traditional lands of its original inhabitants Australia’s Indigenous Peoples since the Dreaming and thousands of generations. Protecting and valuing water landscapes (surface and ground water) has always been a high priority for survival in a dry place, and protecting water remains a cultural obligation. The challenge for Indigenous People is to ensure their value, knowledge and relationship with water is not diminished or excluded by modern day water quantity and quality management.
Australia and New Zealand committed in 2009 to providing additional guidance on managing and assessing water quality that accounts for Indigenous cultural and spiritual values. In 2018 the Guidance for these values were published becoming live documents for water quality managers, community groups and governments to consider implementing. The presentation will describe cultural and spiritual values of water and then the process to produce the guidance for these values including the development of principles, case studies and guidance within the ANZFMWQG.