1 February 2021

Gippsland community groups have worked with EJA to design ambitious new legislative and policy reforms for the Gippsland Lakes and catchment.

Throughout 2020, we worked with our community partners through a participatory design process (Gippsland Lakes) which has culminated in exciting and ambitious proposals for reform. We are looking forward to refining these proposals through in-person discussions over the next few months.

These reforms include special purpose legislation which recognizes the ‘living entity’ status of the Lakes, a new restorative agenda for halting and reversing system decline, and a redistribution of power and control to Gunaikurnai. The proposed Gippsland Lakes and Catchment Act would establish a long-term framework for restoration of the Gippsland Lakes through an integrated and holistic management of the Lakes, catchment and tributary rivers.

The Gippsland Lakes are a manifestation of colonisation and invasion, industry and pollution, and settler attempts to modify and ‘control’ nature. These ambitious law reform proposals work to tackle this matrix of cumulative impacts by allowing us to envision a restored and healthy Lakes system and by shifting the paradigm of how we, as individuals and communities, relate to the Lakes and catchment.