The Ngarrindjeri nation of Murraylands and the Coorong in South Australia refer to the mighty Murray River as “Murundi”. South Australia is a fascinating desert state and Murundi is its aorta, delivering life sustaining water to a hauntingly beautiful, but climatically stressed landscape. The fauna, flora, nurturing environment, big skies and indigenous history are special, and harbour three Ramsar wetland sites (The Coorong, Lakes Alexandrina/Albert and Banrock Station in Riverland). In addition, there is a huge dark sky reserve enveloping Murundi. Anthropogenic threats challenge the Murundi, and as a biologist and visual artist embracing natural history photography, I have tried to record a body of work that I hope, in some small way, will help publicise the river and its bounty, promoting optimal guardianship and a collective appreciation of the South Australian Murray River by contemporary society.
I have a slight back story that has prompted me to write this photo essay. I grew up next to the Royal Society for Protection of Birds (RSPB) reserve at Minsmere, Suffolk (UK), a world-famous Ramsar site, and one that spawned my early passion for biology and natural history photography. The UK government recently granted planning consent for the £20 billion (now already bloated to £48 billion) Sizewell-C nuclear powerplant in Suffolk, right next to Minsmere. The proposed infrastructure changes related to energy policy will transition UK’s Suffolk Heritage Coast, into the Suffolk Energy Coast. The East Suffolk Heritage Coast and Sandling heaths with their pink thatched cottages are hauntingly beautiful, culturally distinct, and biologically valuable, and are set to become inappropriately industrialised as potentially the largest onshore energy hub in Europe. Despite organised, intelligent protest and legal argument, concrete and humanity is set to displace world-class nature as well as a popular tourist hub.
Although the scale of impact is far less, I now live a short drive from the Coorong and Murray River in South Australia, and I’m increasingly conscious of how recent government housing development planning is threatening the rural nature of landscapes around the river. In Goolwa, Hindmarsh Island, Murray Bridge and close by in Victor Harbor, urbanisation is metastasizing. Legislation favours developers over conservationists, and, as a biologist, I feel more should be done to rebalance this equilibrium. The process is slow, but inexorable. In a recent scientific article, I discuss the impact of humans on planetary biology and how this negative conflagration defines the Anthropocene.
The geography involved may seem to have little to do with Minsmere bird reserve and nuclear power, but in some ways, they stand as the best example of what needs to be prevented. They are a proxy for anthropogenic mishandling of the planet. The Murray River and Coorong are conduits for nature, providing life-sustaining water to a parched state. The natural history and dark skies that straddle its length provide a wonderful natural tapestry, and I hope this photo essay will amplify/celebrate the region in a way that advocates for nature above all else. The Murray is Australia’s longest river and extends along the border of NSW and Victoria to its source in the Australian Alps. This photo essay covers the South Australian sector only.
Of course, the mighty Murundi also contains a network of islands and tributaries that craft their own spell. The slideshow below depicts a single tree next to the Finniss River, a tributary of the Murray. The animal noises around me as I stood in near pitch darkness shooting these long exposures of the milkyway and aurora australis were surreal.
Anthropogenic threats to South Australia’s Murundi include climate-change, stormwater run-off and pollution, algal blooms, salinity, erosion/sedimentation, low dissolved oxygen, loss of wetland habitats, drought vulnerability, infrastructure to alter flow and creation of barriers to fish, development and water draw-off (for humans and crops). Submerged red gum trees at Lake Bonney are iconic and make hauntingly powerful images but are in fact remnants from the lake formed by lock-construction on the Murray River– testament to anthropogenic change.
The slide show below shows some of the skeletal trees submerged in Lake Bonney at sunset.
Earth is seriously ill due to human perturbation, and I feel the most important role a nature photographer can have is as a guardian of our planet’s good health – people and governments can, and do, respond to powerful images of our planet, be they positive or negative. I hope my passion for visual art can raise a degree of awareness and thus help catalyse the collective and innate empathy that people have for nature and environment. In drawing attention and inquiry to Murundi, maybe in some small way it will help with the conservation and stewardship of the Murray River into the future and raise questions about potential inappropriate development and use. I’m sure I’m not alone in seeing how the recent global shift in politics has downgraded the value of nature and environment in the minds of leading policymakers! If this article can chip away at this, even microscopically, it’s worth the effort.
Postscript: I decided to write this article when, in 2025, a toxic algal bloom caused by Karenia mikimotoi hit the South Australian coast, crossing into the Coorong itself. It is widely accepted that the conditions leading to this bloom have been exacerbated by climate change. While much reporting is focused on dead wildlife washing up on the beach, it also seems to me that the birdlife has become slightly diminished – I hope this is my imagination, but perhaps it wouldn’t be so surprising if it were a real thing. I regularly photograph birds along the river and Coorong, and I get a sense that numbers might have dropped. The overall algal bloom problem continues with a lack of clarity over how things are likely to progress in the months ahead.
The slide show above depicts some of the myriad of species I’ve photographed in and around the River Murray and Coorong National Park
The slideshow above reflects the living sky above the River Murray – A smorgas board of many different wader species, dominated by sharp-tailed sandpipers, but also everything from multiple tern species to flocks of Australian shelducks.
All images were taken on Fujifilm equipment, except for Minsmere/Sizewell B shot on Canon.
