Lake Victoria Cultural Heritage

Lake Victoria is located in south western NSW and is a key water storage in the management of water resources in the Basin. The Lake is also an important cultural heritage site for the Aboriginal community, containing the physical traces of human life and the burial grounds of Aboriginal people who lived there over many thousands of years. Constructed as an 'off-river' storage in 1928, the Lake is vital in providing security of supply of water during the summer months for the development of the Lower Murray region in South Australia. For more than seventy years, the Lake was operated to maximise water conservation as well as playing a key role in managing salinity in the lower Murray.

In 1994, operation of the Lake as a water storage was restricted in response to concerns over damage to significant cultural heritage and Aboriginal burials exposed on the Lake's foreshores. Since that time, the Murray-Darling Basin Commission has spent more than $8 million on the largest single cultural heritage conservation project in an effort to balance the needs of the Basin's water users, the protection of cultural heritage and minimisation of impacts on the natural environment.

Finding the balance between the competing interests has involved many stakeholder groups, eight State and Commonwealth government departments and has brought to the fore several inter-jurisdictional issues of river management. Involving the Aboriginal community as well as landholders in decision-making has been a key component in the minimisation of legal confrontation and has created a foundation for the sustainable management of the cultural and natural heritage values of the area into the future.

The Lake is once again operating as a critical storage facility within the Murray-Darling Basin system, although the objectives of management have changed. A Lake Victoria Cultural Landscape Plan of Management, May 2002 has been developed which reflects the need to protect the nationally significant cultural heritage values of the Lake while also ensuring that the Basin's water resource requirements are met.

If you would like further information, please contact the Lake Victoria Program Manager lakevic.project%40mdbc.gov.au

Further information

Lake Victoria Cultural Heritage Project Factsheet

The Lake Victoria Cultural Landscape Plan of Management

The section 90 Consent under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act

The Lake Victoria Advisory Committee

The Role of Lake Victoria as a Water Storage

The Cultural Heritage Significance of Lake Victoria

Cultural Heritage Protection

A Bibliography of Reports from the Lake Victoria Project

Last updated on: 4/ 6/ 04