The Coorong’s wetlands

Linhof Technika IV

The Coorong wetlands on the coast of South Australia are a liminal place that marks the junction between the Murray-Darling Basin and the Southern Ocean. It is an iconic wetland known for its bird life with a history of being in constant transition and change. The shifting movement between sea, freshwater and land fosters various forms of more-than-human life.

The Coorong is a Ramsar-listed wetland and so these shallow, dynamic lagoons are often seen as natural, given that they are a national park. The efforts of the state and federal governments since the 1970s has been focused on conservation: on preserving these wetlands as natural places thereby largely framing these lagoons as separate from humans and culture.

Linhof Technika IV
Coorong wetlands

But, as Emily O’Gorman points out in her Wetlands in a Dryland the Coorong is a deeply historical place that has been shaped by the entangled changes to human and nonhuman lives.

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