| Summary: | This report presents a review of literature on ‘relational values’ in the Murray Darling Basin (MDB). Relational values represent the principles, preferences, and virtues associated with individual and collective relationships to nature (Chan et al. 2016). Relational values encompass, rather than separate, value categories that are typically referred to as social or cultural. Importantly, proponents of the concept see relational values as derivative of relationships and responsibilities that shape how people engage with, and care about, nature. Profiling relational values enables the conversation about why people care about the MDB to move beyond the binary economic versus environmental values discourse, that dominates debates about water policy and marginalises some of the ways that people value the Basin. Principle Observations Our review finds that the MDB is valued in diverse ways, by a growing diversity of people who live in or have interests in the region. The literature reviewed here highlights wide ranging ways in which people relate to the Basin’s rivers and waterways and the benefits they derive from connections to nature and to each other. The dualistic economic vs environmental values discourse supports a zero-sum mentality that fails to recognise inter-related values reported here and their complex dependencies on water and healthy ecosystems. We distilled six key themes that recurred across the literature: (i) Connectivity (ii) Reciprocity (iii) Scale (iv) Agrarian sentiment (v) Conflict, and (vi) Climate Change. The first three of these themes are highly interdependent, illustrating the deeply rooted connections to waterways and community of both First Nations and non-Indigenous residents in the Basin. Such connections generate a strong sense of local attachment, despite reported perceptions that community voices, particularly those of First Nations, are marginalised in broader governance of the Basin. In part, this unequal position was attributed to the perceived dominance of agrarian sentiment ...
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