Case studies

Katie Oxenham, IPA Coordinator

The Anindilyakwa Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) comprises the Groote Eylandt archipelago and surrounding waters in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Although this is a remote and relatively pristine environment, large quantities of marine debris regularly wash up on its shores. The Anindilyakwa Land and Sea Rangers, a department of the Anindilyakwa Land Council, undertakes a range of initiatives to address the debris, to protect the significant cultural and biodiversity values of the IPA’s sea Country.

Figure 33 (a) Anindilyakwa rangers beach patrol debris collection. (b) Senior Ranger Jocelyn Yantrrnga sorting marine debris. (c) Ute load of ghost nets and other debris with rangers. (d) Maicie Lalara from Anindilyakwa Arts with her monster fish pieces made from ghost nets

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Figure 33 (a) Anindilyakwa rangers beach patrol debris collection. (b) Senior Ranger Jocelyn Yantrrnga sorting marine debris. (c) Ute load of ghost nets and other debris with rangers. (d) Maicie Lalara from Anindilyakwa Arts with her monster fish pieces made from ghost nets

Studies have shown that most of the marine debris that washes up in the Gulf of Carpentaria has not been generated locally, but originates from Indonesia, and is transported via the Arafura Sea by prevailing winds and ocean currents.

The Traditional Owners of the Anindilyakwa IPA, the Warnindilyakwa, have close cultural connections to their sea Country, with songlines and totems relating to the coastal and marine environments. It is important to many families to spend time together on sea Country, for traditional knowledge to be passed down, and to participate in fishing and traditional harvest of turtles and other marine resources. As a result, most community members have witnessed firsthand the negative impacts of marine debris.

Management activities by the rangers includes the following:

• Regular beach patrols to collect marine debris. Beach patrols are time-consuming, labour-intensive and undertaken in difficult conditions, but result in collection of around 94 cubic metres of marine debris each year (enough to fill around 3 shipping containers). Unfortunately, most of this is transported to landfill, but ghost nets and items such as floats and bottle caps are re-used by women from the Anindilyakwa Arts Centre to create ghost net baskets and other artworks.
• Coordination of an annual Clean Up Groote Eylandt Day event, in collaboration with South32, in which community members are invited to collect marine debris alongside the rangers. Each event has attracted more than 100 participants, and huge volumes of marine debris have been collected, sorted and provided for re-use to the arts centre, where possible.
• Coordination of a container deposit scheme recycling program, in collaboration with South32, Sea Swift and Envirobank, in which the rangers collect glass and plastic drink bottles from the community of Alyangula. The bottles are transported for free to a recycling facility in Darwin. Many of the drink bottles collected by the rangers during beach patrols are also recycled through this scheme.

Like other coastal ranger groups dealing with marine debris around the Gulf, Anindilyakwa Land and Sea Rangers is a small team responsible for the management of extensive coastline. Unless more is done to address marine debris at its source, it will continue to be a management issue that takes significant time away from the rangers’ other land and sea management activities.

It is hoped that greater pressure can be brought to bear on plastic manufacturers and authorities, not just in Indonesia but globally, to introduce initiatives to reduce the amount of plastic entering the ocean. In the meantime, it is hoped that the rangers’ management can be continued and expanded to better protect the IPA’s incredibly significant sea Country.

Recommendations in the National Marine Science Plan 2015–25 (Treloar et al. 2016) are crucial for Australia to achieve sustainable use of our marine environment and to reap the full benefits from the blue economy. Two recommendations are particularly relevant to state of the environment reporting, and other national state and trend reporting (e.g. State of the climate, Status of Australian fish stocks):

• Establish and support a National Marine Baselines and Long-Term Monitoring Program.
• Develop a dedicated and coordinated science program to support decision-making by policy-makers and marine industry in the face of challenges such as cumulative impacts, multiple pressures, and social and economic considerations.

Implementation of these recommendations will provide more complete data and information to support assessment of cumulative impacts and management effectiveness.

Two working groups were established by the National Marine Science Committee (NMSC) to develop advice on establishing and supporting these national programs (a baselines and monitoring working group and an integrated ecosystem assessment (IEA) working group). Reports from the working groups (Hedge et al. 2021, Smith et al. 2021) have recently been endorsed by the NMSC.

The baselines and monitoring working group concluded that there is considerable support in Australia for a national approach to marine baselines and monitoring. However, this would need clear oversight from industry, and state and national jurisdictions if the vision is to be achieved and for maximum benefit to be drawn from experience with existing programs. Success requires a commitment to ensuring that national marine data are findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable (FAIR), and that data derived from Indigenous knowledge are used and managed appropriately, with national monitoring priorities designed to meet the needs of data users.

Two options for establishing a national approach to marine baselines and monitoring are a ‘step-change’ program, supported with new funding; or an ‘incremental development collaboration’, opportunistically drawing funds from a variety of existing programs.

IEAs are emerging as a key international solution for providing a scientific evidence base to answer complex questions about the management of marine and coastal systems. The IEA working group considered the potential benefits and opportunities for implementing IEAs in Australia. It concluded that IEAs provide a system-wide perspective that not only focuses on the natural ecosystems but encompasses users of the systems, including social, cultural and economic considerations. Although full IEAs have not been undertaken in Australia, similar approaches have been completed or are currently being used in several locations. These examples form case studies that can be used to identify criteria to assist with implementation of IEAs in an Australian context.

The core recommendation of the IEA working group was that 4 Australian IEA pilot studies be undertaken: in the New South Wales marine estate, Spencer Gulf, the Victorian coastline and the northern seascapes. The proposed locations for pilot studies include areas with differing spatial extents and user complexity, including different competing objectives, needs and uses, levels of data, knowledge, and progress. These contrasting examples were selected to enable decision-makers and stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of IEAs in diverse situations. The intent is to benchmark the needs and approaches for other future uses, locations and jurisdictions, including articulation of how the approach will support ongoing assessment of state and trends, cumulative impacts and management effectiveness.