Thanks to our 21st century consumer-driven ignorance and bliss, we are killing not just ourselves, but our rivers, the very lifeblood of the nation and so many of our industries.

And like many of the other crises we as a society have inflicted upon ourselves, the sad and sorry state of our rivers has been caused by short-sightedness, greed, neglect and a `she’ll be right’ attitude that has been catching up to us for years.

We have extracted too much water when and where there was not enough, we have dumped waste and rubbish into rivers like they were one giant liquid garbage bag, we have introduced exotic fish into waterways and they have decimated native fish stocks, and we have failed to manage the health of our rivers in a responsible and sustainable way.

We probably did not need this latest report to tell us what we should have already known - that the situation is dire, but we owe it to ourselves and to generations to come to take action to stop the decline, if indeed it is not already too late.

Ours is a society that often portrays itself as being so smart, so innovative and so progressive, yet perhaps our biggest challenge lies ahead - accept responsibility for all our actions, and in the case of our rivers, do what we can in future to make things as good as they were in the past.

What do you think?

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