Stefano de Pieri, chef, art lover and Murray River advocate, outside his home in Mildura

Stefano de Pieri, chef, art lover and Murray River advocate, outside his home in Mildura Photo: Melissa Fyfe

Stefano de Pieri's house sits on a high river bank in Mildura, on a wide sweep of the Murray. It's a blessing and a curse, he says.

The river itself is stunning along this particular stretch - always kept artificially high for house boating and water skiing. But the speed boats drive him mad, especially on weekends when he likes his peace. It's so distracting, he says, he'd rather be in his cafe kitchen cooking breakfast for Mildura's tourists and brunching class.    

De Pieri has campaigned for the ailing Murray River  for many years. At first he railed against the way governments managed the river: as purely a delivery system for irrigation water. Now the game has changed. On the up side, the river regularly makes the national news. But climate change and a 13-year drought means that not only is the river stressed, but also the community in which de Pieri is such a central figure.

"Initially we used to talk a lot about managing the river, but over the last few years the climate discussion has come in parallel, forcing an even bigger, more meaningful discussion," he says.

To really deal with the impacts of climate change, de Pieri says, Mildura needs to rethink its farming practices. The chardonnay boom is over and the town can no longer rely on the bounty of cheap wine exports. The wine industry must resize, he says, and farmers should plant more opportunistic crops.

"The writing was on the wall a long time ago - you cannot sustain the same amount of farming here in the same way. I hope that over time, with adaptation and rationality, people will move away from crops that use too much water. Farmers need to be able to have flexibility and quickly get into the market and then get out of it - perhaps capsicum at certain times of year, a quick crop of watermelon, apricots..."

And like many other people in Mildura, including the mayor Glenn Milne, de Pieri is keen for the regional centre to become Australia's leading city for solar thermal. The area has some of Australia's best solar potential and, being on the corner of three states, is in a handy spot to feed the national grid. Recently, however, Solar Systems, the company that was to build Mildura's fist solar thermal plant, went into administration.  "I get so frustrated it takes such a long time for things to happen in this country," says de Pieri. "Mildura should have been leading the world in this area a long time ago."

De Pieri said the Federal Government buy out of water rights was happening, but slowly. He is still  "upset and annoyed" by the excessive bureaucracy that governs the river system. And he remains puzzled about why people treat river systems so poorly. "We don't stop torturing rivers even though they sing to us and they have sung to us through the centuries. We continue to use and abuse them as if they are going to be there forever."