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A wild river (United States, Australia, & New Zealand) or heritage river (Canada) is a river or a Drainage basin designated by a government to be protected and kept "relatively untouched by development and are therefore in near natural condition, with all, or almost all, of its natural values intact." Australian Heritage Commission (1998) "Conservation Guidelines for the Management of Wild River Values"> Accessed 28 October 2009
Within some Nation including in the United States of America, Canada, New Zealand, and the Commonwealth of Australia, governments have opted to focus on rivers and river systems as a kind of "unmodified or slightly modified" landscape feature to protect, manage and preserve in near 'natural' condition – variously labeling or formally declaring such areas to be "wild rivers" (or "heritage rivers").
The term "wild river" may also more generically describe or identify free-flowing rivers without dams.
Most recently, in Australia, following some declarations, and in the lead up to a number of other 'wild river declarations using Queensland's wild rivers' legislation, Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission observed: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission "Proposed Wild Rivers Declarations" Submission webpage Accessed 8 November 2009
The then Paul Keating, in December 1992, gave a 'Statement on the Environment' speech committing the Commonwealth of Australia to identifying all of Australia's near-pristine rivers and to encouraging government agencies plus Australian peoples generally to more effectively protect and manage those rivers as total catchments. This commitment translated into the establishment of an Australian Heritage Commission Wild Rivers Project: Stein, J. L.; Stein, J. A and Nix, H. A. (1999) The Identification of Wild Rivers: Methodology and database development. Report for the Australian Heritage Commission. Accessed 2 November 2009
By 1998 the Australian Heritage Commission's Wild Rivers Project, working in cooperation with all states, had produced maps identifying Australia's wild rivers across all of the Commonwealth's States, Australian Government's "Australia's Natural Lands and Rivers" web page Accessed 8 November 2009 plus "Conservation Guidelines for the Management of Wild River Values". Australian Government's "Conservation Guidelines for the Management of Wild River Values" web page Accessed 8 November 2009
New South Wales opted to adapt, protect and declare wild rivers, including over of waterways and tributaries of the Grose River and Colo River rivers, under its existing National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.
Queensland identified an initial 19 rivers to be protected as wild rivers and, in September 2005, opted to enact "Australia’s first comprehensive and stand alone legislation to identify, protect and preserve that State’s remaining wild rivers". World Wilderness Congress Resolution 21 web page Accessed 8 November 2009 In 2007, Queensland declared its first wild rivers within the Gulf of Carpentaria, as well as at Fraser Island, and Hinchinbrook Island and in April 2009 a further three wild river areas have been declared in Cape York Peninsula. Queensland Premier Bligh "New Wild Rivers" media release Accessed 8 November 2009
Australia's Wilderness Society (who find their early origins in the original Tasmanian Franklin Wild River campaign), also chose to renew and re-initiate its wild river campaigning "...to seek government action around a Wild Rivers framework building on the Australian Heritage Commission’s earlier work...", Wilderness Society's Wild Rivers Campaign web page Accessed 8 November 2009 being an ongoing campaign as follows: Wilderness Society 'Wild Rivers' web page Accessed 8 November 2009
In January 2010, the Queensland Wild Rivers Act 2005 became the subject of national interest when federal Opposition leader Tony Abbott announced a plan to 'overturn' the Act through a proposed Wild Rivers Environmental Management Bill. This legislation intended to insert a provision in the Queensland Act, granting Indigenous titleholders a right to consent to this one regulation. The introduction of the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill to both houses of federal parliament in 2010 and 2011 led to a series of parliamentary inquiries, though in October 2011, Queensland Liberal National Party candidate Campbell Newman indicated he planned to 'axe' the legislation if elected. Elected in March 2012, Newman subsequently announced he would eventually replace the Wild Rivers Act solely in Cape York Peninsula under a Bio-Regional Management Plan anticipated in October 2013.
In 1984 Canada's federal, provincial and territorial governments established a Canadian Heritage Rivers System as Canada's national river conservation program – to conserve and protect the heritage values and integrity of the best examples of Canada's large, free flowing rivers and river systems.
Canada's river conservation program was not established by statute, but is instead a cooperative arrangement between Canada's ten provinces and three territories establishing a fifteen-member (appointed) Canadian Heritage Rivers board, to which participating members nominate rivers to be designated as heritage rivers, for which river management plans building on existing statutory powers are prepared, agreed, and endorsed.
The French River in Ontario was the first river to be designated a heritage river, in 1986, and since then 40 rivers have been designated across Canada:
These wild river campaigns led, in 1981, to the passing of a Wild and Scenic Rivers legislation and, in 1984, to the Motu River becoming New Zealand's first "Wild and Scenic River". Since then 14 other wild rivers have been protected in accordance with New Zealand's Wild Rivers legislation (with 'Water Conservation orders' being made), and in 2009 conservation groups have initiated a renewed and reinvigorated national scale "wild rivers" campaign with the following rationale:
As of 2008 (after 40 years since the United States National Wild and Scenic Rivers System was first created), more than of 166 rivers in 38 States plus the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico have been protected.
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