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Water policy often gets framed as engineering, compliance, and competing demands. Then Sheryl Hedges steps up at the Australian Water Association conference and resets the baseline: for First Nations people, water is not a resource, it’s a living being that carries memory, knowledge, and songlines. That single shift turns “allocation” into responsibility, and it turns river health into a measure of cultural, ecological, and economic life across generations.

Sheryl is a Walbanga woman leading the First Nations Water Branch within Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, and her keynote lands right in the hard numbers. First Nations people hold rights to around 40% of Australian land, yet control less than 0.2% of surface water entitlements in the Murray-Darling Basin. She names the structural roots of that gap, including the fiction of aqua nullius and the way water entitlements have been tied to land ownership and capital inside a multibillion-dollar water market.

We walk through the Murray-Darling Basin Aboriginal Water Entitlements Program (AWEP), a $100 million initiative that is buying water entitlements while also building something more durable: governance that can hold and manage water over the long term, shaped through deep co-design with Basin nations. Sheryl explains why “ownership without governance is fragile”, what the “pace of trust” looks like in practice, and why embedding cultural flows and First Nations decision making is central to Australia’s water resilience, climate adaptation, and institutional integrity.

If you want clearer thinking on First Nations water rights, water governance reform, and what real structural change requires from government, utilities, agriculture, finance, and allies, have a listen. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 25 February 2026.

Music:

Yellowstone Birds, by Yellowstone Sound Library (from Artlist).

The Tree Who Grew On Water, by Yoav Ilan (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits, and help keep the show going - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find writing too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event too, even the shop. Thanks for your support!

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Back in March, Dr Katie Ross and I ran a canoe journey along the Murray/Dungala River, Australia’s longest, most regulated and mythologised river - to, as the bill put it, listen, witness, and create, in deep immersion and deep time. Could that help change the story of a magnificent but sorely ailing River and its communities? By changing our stories? By asking the River even?

We headed to the confluence of the Murray Darling/Dungala Baaka Rivers, and called the journey Confluence. It filled in days. And come the Equinox, 16 of us climbed aboard and disembarked for a week together.

We’ve had many folk asking about it since. Including many who wanted to be there but couldn’t. So with thanks to you all for your interest, we decided to record our initial debrief for you. There’ll be more to share over time. But if you’re interested in how Confluence came about, was set up, and turned out in its first running, then here’s a starter.

We also debrief on Katie’s broader tour of Australia, delivering related keynotes. And our chat culminates with some of the most extraordinary aspects of the river journey.

This was recorded a little after Confluence, by the Yarra/Birrarung River in Melbourne/Naarm - the first to be recognised as a living entity in Australian law. Though you might be surprised to learn that recognition doesn’t include the water.

So we start with this monumental story of the river we sit by, and the broader movements it’s part of, then trace our path back to Confluence.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 17 April 2026.

Title image: Katie with Cynthia Mitchell up front (pic: Anthony James).

See more photos in this article & participant Sally Gillespie’s.

Ep 218 - Katie at Aldo Leopold’s shack

Ep 97 - Alessandro Pelizzon

Ep 37 - Nora Bateson

Ep 195 – Dominique Hes

Ep 211 - Jeff Goebel

Music:

River, by Onyx Music (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits, and help keep the show going - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find writing too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event too, even the shop. Thanks for your support!

Message us (inc. if it's ok to share on the pod)

This bonus travelogue traces a walk through Concord, Massachusetts, as we step into the living neighbourhood behind some of the most influential American writers and ideas.

Last week, we celebrated the 300th episode with a visit to the legendary site of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin on the shores of Walden Pond, where he wrote the famous book going by the pond’s name. The next day, we drifted into the town of Concord to visit the Thoreau family home, Henry David’s birthplace.

Then, on our way to his mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson’s place up the road, we came across another famous house - Louisa May Alcott’s family home. They were family friends of Emerson and Thoreau, and Louisa became another famous writer in town, as the author of Little Women.

We didn’t have time for the tour, but to our great delight, the two elders who were running the tours, Beth and Anne, were out front and became fascinated by our tour of the country. We were then regaled with some of the awesome stories behind the stories, including of the hundreds of thousands of visitors coming from around the world, often with some surprising connections. They also had plenty to say on the spirit of places like this. They’re in no doubt of it.

After that, we made it to Emerson’s place. But first, the Thoreau’s, reflecting along the way on friendship, mentorship, and the journal practice Emerson urged Thoreau to keep. The thread tying it all together? Perhaps it's attention: noticing what a landscape is asking of us, and deciding how we want to live in response.

If this lands for you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review with a line or question you’re taking with you. Or text or voicemail in via the link above.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 11 September 2024.

Title image: Thoreau's birthplace.

See more photos on the episode web page, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener below.

Music:

Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits, and help keep the show going - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find writing too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event too, even the shop. Thanks for your support!