"Remaking Wetlands: A Tale of Rice, Ducks, and Floods in the Murrumbidgee River Region"

from Multimedia Library Collection:
Exploring Environmental History (podcasts)

Oosthoek, Jan. “Podcast 48: Remaking Wetlands: A Tale of Rice, Ducks, and Floods in the Murrumbidgee River Region.” Exploring Environmental History Podcast, 05 December 2012. MP3, 34.13. http://www.eh-resources.org/podcast/podcast2012.html.

Australia is a dry continent and as a result Australian ecologies can generally be characterised as “boom and bust” and are significantly driven by intermittent and unpredictable wet “booms” and dry “busts.” The populations and movements of many animals are considerably influenced by these wet and dry periods. Birds tend to be “nomadic” and go where the water is. Native Australian ducks are no exception. Before the arrival of Europeans and their agriculture, ducks only had to compete with other native birds and animals, as well as Aboriginal hunters. However, the introduction of water intensive agricultural activity by Europeans changed all this and in particular rice cultivation has been implicated in altering the Murrumbidgee river system in Australia, and as a result the habitat for ducks The guest on this episode is Emily O’Gorman, an expert on Australian flooding and river history. On this podcast, she examines the ways in which ducks as well as people negotiated the changing water landscapes of the Murrumbidgee River caused by the creation of rice paddies.

Remaking wetlands: a tale of rice, ducks and floods in the Murrumbidgee River region (27.44 MB)

Music Credits: “Where You Are Now” by Zapac, “Forecast” by cdk.

Exploring Environmental History podcasts are periodic programmes featuring interviews with people working in the field, reports on conferences and discussions about the use and methods of environmental history. They are posted on the Environmental History Resources website, which is maintained by Jan Oosthoek.

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