PARTS of the River Murray's ecology will be lost or changed forever by the drought and global warming, the head of the new Murray Darling Basin Authority has conceded.
In his first interview with The Adelaide Advertiser since being appointed chairman and chief executive of the soon-to-be-operational Murray Darling Basin Authority, Rob Freeman, said the body would achieve a world first when it established a single plan for a river system covering both environmental and economic
"No one has ever tried to work out environmentally sustainable limits on water extraction and then tried to maximise economic and social outcomes on top of that," the former South Australian public servant said.
"We looked at examples in Africa and the US and this will be a world first."
The new authority replaces the former Murray Darling Basin Commission which had limited powers over the system as a whole and did not set an overall cap on extractions.
With nearly 170 staff from the old commission, the authority formally takes over on December 15 after the four Basin states and the ACT ceded their management powers to the Commonwealth and the legislation cleared both Houses of Parliament last week.
Mr Freeman, 54, says he is particularly aware of the South Australian issues after spending the last six years as the head of the SA Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity.
But he warned there was a limit to what could be done in the short term because current state water plans would remain in force until they expired, which in the case of Victoria was not until 2019.
