Richmond Riverkeeper

03/09/2026

Join the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) and Total Environment Centre (TEC) for the next in their series of workshops about Rights of Nature and the potential of ‘river rights’ in New South Wales.

This workshop will bring people together from river communities around NSW, to discuss current initiatives and plans for the future. We will hear from Paul Powlesland, a barrister from the United Kingdom, who will discuss the River Wye Charter, and the legal personhood for rivers movement in the UK; and discuss strategies for building a working group and network for river rights in NSW.

Join the discussions, and share your views about how we can collaborate to strengthen our capacity to be a voice for local rivers, and create new governance structures to protect and manage our living waterways.

all welcome 💙 register 👇🏽

https://events.humanitix.com/rivers16sept

02/09/2026

🙌🏽 Richmond Riverkeeper welcomes the state’s acknowledgement that fixing catchment health needs a coordinated effort.

Our river crosses 6 local government areas plus state and federal jurisdictions. Fragmented governance has long been the barrier to acting on the numerous studies and reports already sitting on the shelf.

We’re especially glad to see the Tuckean Swamp getting attention, a place of deep cultural and environmental significance.

Some questions we’ll be watching closely:
🔹 How will First Nations voices be central to this process?
🔹 What does genuine stakeholder partnership look like in practice?
🔹 How will the community be engaged, not just consulted?

We want accountability. But more than that, we want sustained commitment. We’ve had integrated catchment plans before, what the river needs now is the follow-through.

29/08/2026

29/08/2026

🎉 One River, Many Voices: the Richmond RiverFest program is live!

The annual month long Richmond RiverFest will be launching again this year in Ballina, on World Rivers Day Sunday 27 September — a fitting place to begin, where the river meets the sea and every tributary of the catchment finally converges.

💙 www.richmondriverfest.com

But a river doesn’t start at its mouth. So before the festival began, a small crew went looking for where it does.

High in the ranges, the Wilsons River starts as a clear crystal brook , emerging from below Mt Jerusalem between bangalow palm gullies and landslip-scarred hills. A long way from the wide, brown water most of us know downstream .

🫶🏾 To experience firsthand the country at the source of the Wilsons River, Riverkeepers joined Wilsons Creek Huonbrook Landcare and OzFish Unlimited, with the Byron Hikers Club leading the way.

Together the group traced creeklines up through the top of the catchment, past landslides still raw from 2022, reading a landscape that’s still very much recovering.

Landcare brought knowledge of the land and what these slips mean for what’s downstream. OzFish brought its eye for the creeks and what lives in them. The Hikers Club brought the local know-how to get everyone in and out safely. Different skills, one catchment, a small-scale version of what RiverFest is trying to do at scale: bring people together around a shared river.

Every flood that reaches Lismore, every swimming hole downstream, starts up here. Walking it is a reminder that healing a river means paying attention to all of it — not just the parts we can swim in.

That’s the spirit carrying us through a month of RiverFest events, 27 September to 24 October — one river, many voices, headwaters to sea.

🙌🏽 www.richmondriverfest.com

There is an event for everyone no matter where you live across the catchment with more events being added everyday!

28/08/2026

This 🙌🏽 listen to the jarjums ..

22/08/2026

📣Exciting news! Wardell River Festival is joint the Richmond RiversFest program this year.

Save the date !

Wardell River Festival is back this year on Saturday October 17th with an amazing lineup of live music, kids activities, river fun, food and more !!

Keen to get involved and help out on the day ?

Join Wardell Neighbourhood Centre for the volunteer signup and planning day at the Rainbow Room behind St Patricks Church this Saturday 22 Aug from 10:30-12:30 followed sausage sizzle lunch.

If you are coming along - please bring an empty and clean milk bottle for lantern making practice.

If you can’t make this Saturdays induction but want to get involved - please send your contact details here 👇🏽

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf1ojn2-cuiECdkyBo47RQF9KTDd802ysWtoSLMXzqT9mn2jQ/viewform?usp=header

Full festival program launching soon 🔜 www.richmondriverfest.com

19/08/2026

🙌🏽 A pair of majestic Black Necked Storks visiting the wetlands of Dundarimba (Lismore) 🦩

📸 beautiful images by Samara Hamilton

17/08/2026

📣Join Border Ranges - Richmond Valley Landcare Network for a WETLAND WEBINAR

August 19th - 7 to 8 pm online

Improving Wetlands: Building Resilience Across the Richmond River Catchment - this webinar is suited to both primary production properties and conservation properties.

Join this one-hour webinar to gain practical, on-ground information about how to identify, manage and restore wetlands on your property.

Register at: https://form.jotform.com/262212248970052

This event will be recorded. If you are interested to access the webinar but unable to attend the timeslot, please register and we will provide you access to the recorded session after the event.

Wetlands are significant natural assets that support a wide range of critical functions across the landscape. They can take many forms, including rivers, lagoons, swamps, billabongs, drainage lines and even wet paddocks.

Across the Richmond River catchment, wetlands provide essential environmental services such as flood mitigation, pollutant management and carbon storage. They also provide critical habitats for local and migratory birds, frogs, fish and mammals.

Despite their importance, many wetlands have been significantly impacted by land clearing, livestock pressure, drainage and neglect. As the impacts of climate change become increasingly significant, the role of healthy wetlands in building landscape resilience is more important than ever.

Well-managed wetlands can strengthen resilience at both the farm and regional scale. They can help landholders manage water, protect biodiversity and improve the health and productivity of the broader landscape.

This session will be presented by Katrina Curran from Australian Wetlands Consulting, a practitioner with extensive experience working alongside landholders to restore wetlands across the Northern Rivers region.

This webinar is part of the Working on Wetlands as Kidneys of the Catchment project being implemented by the Border Ranges Richmond Valley Landcare Network with support from the Australian Wetlands Consultancy. This project is funded under Caring for Catchments by the Australian Government in partnership with the NSW Reconstruction Authority and North Coast Regional Landcare Network.