DEG hosted a meeting in September 2014 with the Aboriginal unit of the Murray Darling Basin Authority ("MDBA") to find out about its Cultural Health Index tool

- a tool Maori have designed to measure and prove the current cultural values to Aboriginal people of water. After learnings gained during the meeting, the DEG decided to host a week's trial of the tool with 11 community participants, in late October 2014. Theoretically the tool will be a way of the community providing evidence of community consultation regarding the Aboriginal Cultural Values of significant places reliant on water around Walgett. DEG is yet to analyse how useful it believes the tool will be and whether it needs modification. MDBA promised to not retain the data collected during the trials, only the information about the functionality of the tool.