The vision of the Native Fish Strategy (NFS) is to ensure that viable fish communities and populations are sustained throughout the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin. The goal of the strategy is to rehabilitate native fish communities in the Murray-Darling Basin back to 60% of their estimated pre-European-settlement levels, after 50 years of implementation. The NFS has been in place since 2004. Experts estimated that levels at that time were about 10% of those pre-European-settlement. Native fish species in the Murray-Darling Basin have suffered serious decline in distribution and abundance since European settlement. Various factors have contributed to this decline, including habitat deterioration, predation and competition from alien fish, reduction of water quality, and human-made barriers to fish movement. The NFS provides guidance for investing funds (but is not a source of funds), and assigning priorities, responsibilities and evaluation procedures for fish research and development programs; on-ground implementation programs; construction programs for fishways; and community education and awareness programs.

Organisation	Murray-Darling Basin Authority and State Agencies
Contact	Anthony Townsend Ph: (02) 6763 1440, email: [email protected]
Funding Body	Murray-Darling Basin Authority The Living Murray program