Traditional Owners, First Nations groups and OzFish are teaming up to save the endangered Olive Perchlet fish along parts of the Murray Darling Basin on Wiradjuri County in New South Wales.

The tiny fish which once filled the billabongs of the Basin, were an important food source for First Nations people, birds, snakes and the Murray cod.

While the Olive Perchlet can still be found in billabongs of the Upper Murray Darling Basin in Queensland, it has all but disappeared in NSW and is considered a threatened species.

Wiradjuri Cultural and Environmental Rangers, Boys to the Bush - a local Indigenous youth program – and OzFish are restoring the habitats of the threatened fish species on Wiradjuri County.

Wiradjuri Cultural and Environmental Ranger group founder Peter White said he remembered when the billabongs were teeming with small fish.

"I haven't seen any for years and years and years," he said.

"When we were kids, we had water snails and all, and we don't see them anymore. We should be protecting those areas to see them come back."

The Central West NSW Landcare member and president of the Forbes chapter of OzFish is passionate about riparian restoration and spends a good deal of his time planting river red gums on the riverbank near Forbes.

More than 56 per cent of fish fauna are threatened in the Murray Darling Basin and around 30 per cent of Australian freshwater fish are facing extinction.

"It's a no-brainer," Mr White said. "The more people who get involved and bring all that knowledge and get it into this arena, to get together and work on it, the better. We can bring it back."

Boys to the Bush director of the Dubbo area, Chad Parkes, said he understood the importance of restoration works for fish and other aquatic wildlife.

"The collaboration between Boys to the Bush and OzFish exemplifies the power of community partnerships in fostering both environmental stewardship and personal growth among young people," Mr Parkes said.

"By working together, we are nurturing the next generation of environmental custodians and fostering a deeper appreciation for the importance of maintaining our waterways."

OzFish has been working with Traditional Owners and tapping into First Nations' traditional culture as well as using scientific methods to build 20 "habitat rafts" that will be installed into four significant wetlands along the Basin.

The rafts which are being built by Indigenous youths as part of the Boys to the Bush program, mimic those that naturally formed when riparian tree branches used to fall into the rivers.

"I love making the plant rafts, it's something that I enjoy," Beau, a Boys to the Bush program participant, said.

"I love working with my hands and helping improve our local environment."

"Sean makes it fun and teaches us what we need to do. Then we have a go."

OzFish Dubbo River Repair Bus team leader, Sean Graham, said the program showed how working in a team could have a positive impact on the lives of First Nations kids and the environment.

"This hands-on approach not only equips the participants with practical skills," Mr Parkes said.

"But also installs a sense of responsibility and pride in the contributions to preserving our natural surroundings."

OzFish is delivering this project in partnership with Landcare NSW and the One Basin Cooperative Research Centre.