Discursos ambientais e direito da água: um estudo da regulamentação da bacia hidrográfica de Murray-Darling
| Autor | Sally Ashton, Elena Aydos |
| Cargo | University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia |
| Páginas | 47-86 |
Recebido em: 02/12/2019
Revisado em: 13/12/2019
Aprovado em: 17/12/2019
http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2177-7055.2019v41n83p47
Direito autoral e licença de uso: Este artigo está licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons.Com essa licença você
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Environmental Discourses and Water Law: a Case
Study of the Regulation of the Murray-Darling
Basin
Discursos Ambientais e Direito da Água: um Estudo da Regulamentação da
Bacia Hidrográfica de Murray-Darling
Sally Ashton1
Elena Aydos1
1University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Abstract: The Murray-Darling Basin, in south-
eastern Australia, comprises 14 per cent of
Australia’s geography. This paper examines
some of the historical and contemporary
discourses that have been deployed in the last
120 years in managing the complex challenges
of the Basin. Differently to prior Indigenous
practices, prevailing environmental discourses
in this period have highlighted the disconnect
between humans and their environment.
Whilst Ecologically Sustainable Development
underpins the objects of the Water Act 2007
(Cth), it is evident that, in fact, it is an economic
rationalism discourse that has been deployed to
regulate environmental outcomes through the
marketisation of water rights.
Keywords: Water regulation, Environmental
discourses. Murray-Darling Basin.
Resumo: A bacia hidrográfica de Murray-
-Darling, localizada no sudeste da Austrália,
compreende 14% do território Australiano.
O presente artigo examina os discursos ambien-
tais que informaram a regulamentação ambien-
tal da Bacia nos últimos 120 anos. Contrariando
práticas indígenas locais, os discursos ambien-
tais predominantes nos últimos 120 anos desta-
cam a desconexão entre os seres humanos e seu
meio ambiente. Enquanto o Desenvolvimento
Ecologicamente Sustentável encontra-se entre
os objetos da Lei Federal da Água de 2007, é
evidente a prevalência do racionalismo econô-
mico na regulamentação da bacia hidrográfica
por meio da comercialização dos direitos da
água.
Palavras-chave: Direito da água. Discursos
ambientais. Murray-Darling Basin.
48 Seqüência (Florianópolis), n. 83, p. 47-86, dez. 2019
Environmental Discourses and Water Law: a Case Study of the Regulation of the Murray-Darling Basin
1 Introduction
The Murray-Darling Basin is situated in the south-east of Australia,
and encompasses 14 per cent of Australia’s total land mass.1 It is known
as ‘the food bowl of the nation’, with an agricultural industry worth
an annual $24 billion.2 In the last 120 years, particularly, it has been
subject to increasing pressures due to the demands on the river systems
for water for agriculture and other industries. This has resulted in
substantial environmental harm, and precarity for those living within
the environment. When up to a million fish died as the result of an
algal bloom on the Darling River at Menindee at the end of 2018,3 the
challenges and complexities of managing a fragile river system were
highlighted.
Crucial to understanding the processes of management is an
understanding of the discourses that inform different approaches.
A discourse is a particular shared way of understanding the world, built
on language, that is used to interpret information and experiences.4 There
is often more than one discourse competing in any given arena,5 and
this is the case with a multiplicity of environmental approaches to the
management of the Murray-Darling Basin.
The law, as well as politics, concerning the Basin is not devoid of
these discursive influences, and indeed, are instrumental in enforcing
the prevailing approaches, both through policy and legislation. This
paper analyses the most important discourses present in contemporary
1 Gerry Bates, Environmental Law in Australia (Lexis Nexis Butterworths, 10th ed, 2019)
502.
2 ‘Discover the Basin’, Australian Government: Murray-Darling Basin Authority
(Webpage) https://www.mdba.gov.au/discover-basin.
3 Rhys Carman and Sara Tomevska, ‘A million dead sh in ‘distressing’ outback algal
bloom at Menindee’, ABC News (Webpage, 15th January 2019). https://www.abc.net.au/
news/2019-01-08/second-sh-kill-in-darling-river-at-menindee/10696632.
4 Brad Jessup and Kim Rubenstein, Environmental Discourses in Public and International
Law (Cambridge university Press, 2012) 4.
5 For example, there are dierent discourses, or ways of thinking and talking about elds
such as politics, mental health, education, law enforcement, etc.
Seqüência (Florianópolis), n. 83, p. 47-86, dez. 2019 49
Sally Ashton – Elena Aydos
environmental management, and pertinent to environmental law in the
Murray-Darling Basin, through the lens of environmental discourses, as
articulated by John Dryzek (Section two).6 Section three present a brief
history of the Murray-Darling Basin, along with a discussion of historical
discourses that have informed the political and legal approaches, both
historically and currently. Section three examines the shift towards the
discourse of ecologically sustainable development that has occurred
subsequent to 1990, and the influence of the discourse of economic
rationalism in the mechanisms to regulate the objects of the Water Act
2007 (Cth).7 The paper concludes that the discourse of ecologically
sustainable development has likely given way to the discourse of
economic rationalism, resulting in a lower prioritisation overall for
environmental health outcomes.
2 Environmental Discourses
There are many competing discourses within the field of
environmentalism. They exist on a spectrum that range from those that
deny any permanent damage to the environment to those who warn of
impending doom and the imminent destruction of our planet. In the
middle are those who, through a variety of approaches, recognise that
some action is required to protect the earth’s environment, although these
vary significantly in motivation and effectiveness.
John Dryzek, in his book ‘Politics of the Earth’,8 has identified
many of these approaches and has categorised them in terms of either
prosaic or imaginative. He has further delineated these approaches within
either a reformist or radical apprehension of engagement.9
A reformist approach seeks to work within existing social and
institutional frameworks to bring about change, and this encompasses the
discourses of problem solving and sustainable development. Within the
6 John S. Dryzek, Politics of the Earth (Oxford University Press, 3rd ed. 2013).
7 Water Act 2007 (Cth).
8 Dryzek (n 6)
9 Ibid 16
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