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The New South Wales government has routinely delayed environmental flows to critical wetlands in the state’s north-west in favour of farming, despite admitting it could harm the breeding cycles of frogs and endangered birds and damage local ecosystems.

Two weeks ago, scientists had to scramble to rescue turtles after WaterNSW abruptly cut water flows to the internationally significant Gwydir region near Moree, after a complaint from a landowner.

Now, a local grazier has released emails that reveal the state’s environment and water department delayed the start of flows to parts of the region from spring until early summer to prioritise harvesting of winter cereal crops.

A concerned bureaucrat wrote to landholders on 26 September, saying the “ideal time to deliver beneficial wetland flow is now” partly due to “warm but mild conditions which with water would trigger wetland vegetation response and other species to breed such as frogs”.

“However, due to the 2025 winter cereal crop, an environmental water delivery will not occur until after they are harvested,” they wrote.

“Delaying delivery is at the detriment of the environment and environmental water accounts.”

Environmental flows refer to water released by the government from dams and tributaries into rivers and ecosystems to restore their health.

The broader Gwydir wetlands region supports four Ramsar-listed sites and encompasses floodplains including the Gingham – where the turtles were rescued – the Mallowa, and the Lower Gwydir watercourses. Wildlife in the area relies on rain and floods, as well as environmental flows managed by state and federal governments in support of the Murray-Darling Basin plan.

Emails show environmental flows to several areas did not start until November or early December. In one instance, the Lower Gwydir, they began in October but at a reduced rate.

Further correspondence reveals the NSW environment and water department also held back flows in 2024, to wait for dryland farming operations on the floodplains to finish their winter cereal harvest. In the Mallowa they did the same in 2023.

Grazier Jonathon Guyer manages wetlands for conservation in the Mallowa watercourse. The property has been in his family’s hands for generations. Earlier this month, he spoke about how the cessation of flows by WaterNSW had caused endangered birds such as the Australasian bittern to flee the wetlands and led to the deaths of fledging waterbirds, frogs and sheep.

But he said he was even more concerned by the “repeated pattern over multiple years of Mallowa environmental water being delayed, shortened, reduced or timed around winter crop harvest and farming activity” by the environment and water department.

Guyer said he had consistently asked the department to explain what analysis or ecological assessment the decision-making was based on and had not been given answers.

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“The deeper issue is that Mallowa environmental water has, for years, been treated as something to fit around farming activity rather than something delivered according to ecological need,” he told the Guardian.

Guyer said when the wetlands had the water they needed, they were alive with plants, birds and insects, and the sound of frogs would keep him awake at night.

“It’s a good awake, because you can understand that the wetlands outside are healthy and happy, and it’s what it’s meant to be,” he said.

“But if there’s a winter crop that hasn’t been harvested, then according to the government departments that are in charge of our environmental goals, they just let slide and we lose it.

“So we don’t hear the frogs, we don’t see the birds.

“How many more of these years do we actually have left before there is nothing left and all this work that we’ve done over the last 50 years across a couple of generations is just gone?”

The correspondence released by Guyer shows the NSW environment and water department is conscious of the ecological consequences of delaying water.

In a 9 October 2025 email to landholders in the Gwydir region, the department wrote that good August and September rain had triggered a “significant environmental response” including growth of many wetland vegetation species.

An official wrote: “frogs are breeding and need surface water to complete this reproductive event”, migratory birds had been spotted in higher than usual numbers and “other waterbirds have been detected in breeding effort attempts, including a record of five threatened Australasian bittern and two threatened black-neck stork juveniles”.

“If the watercourse dried back significantly, the outcome of the naturally triggered environmental response at an individual, species and community level will be diminished. A later delivery or flow event will result in many species seasonal activities needing to start again, if they are able or capable,” they wrote.

In 26 September emails to landholders, the department wrote that delaying delivery of flows also came at greater cost to the environmental water accounts because commencing flows at the hottest time of year “requires higher volumes to achieve the same area inundated compared to cooler times”.

“Year after year observation of flows in the same or very similar timing and with similar volumes will result in less diversity in vegetation species and the habitats available to support animals,” an official wrote.

A 24 February 2025 email to landowners outlined similar concerns over the 2024-25 summer, with the department noting that a later start to flows due to cropping and a smaller window in which to deliver water were affecting the ability to achieve “expected or desired outcomes”.

An environment and water department spokesperson said flows were managed in consultation with the community and experts via environmental water advisory groups.

“This may mean that on some occasions, environmental water flow delivery has been adjusted to accommodate considerations such as land management activities, including farming,” they said.

A report released last week by the federal inspector general of water compliance, Troy Grant, found the NSW government had not secured any of the additional land access it had promised to improve flows in the Gwydir under a northern basin agreement made eight years ago with the federal government.

The NSW Greens water spokesperson, Cate Faehrmann, has been asking the government questions about the circumstances that led to the flows stopping in March.

She said the latest revelations about environmental flow delays raised questions and called on the government to “assure the public that they understand their obligations under multiple water-related laws and treaties to prioritise the environment and protect significant ecological assets like the Ramsar-listed Gwydir wetlands”.

“I was furious when I saw the impact that delaying the delivery of environmental water is having on the wetlands and the thousands of waterbirds and other animals that rely upon healthy wetland ecosystems to survive,” she said.

“The fact that this was a deliberate decision by the NSW government agency tasked with water management raises serious questions about the extent of influence that irrigators still wield upon the government of the day.”

The department’s spokesperson said “the established operating practices of delivering environmental water flows is a separate matter from what is currently occurring in the Gwydir Valley”.

Do you know more? Email lisa.cox@theguardian.com