ACF simply contends that far too much water has been taken from the Murray Darling for irrigation and that insufficient water is left to manage in ways which meet the ecological needs of the rivers and their floodplains, wetlands and billabongs . In a nutshell, environmental flows means water which is allowed to flow through the system in ways which best mimic natural flow regime, thereby meeting the needsof native fish, invertebrates, waterbirds and plants.