As Aboriginal sea ranger Dion Cooper’s patrol boat cuts through Australia’s northern waters, he maintained a running commentary about what seems a featureless blue expanse.
Off the port bow is a breeding ground for dugongs, the slow-moving sea cows still hunted by Aborigines in the Northern Territory, further on, a spot where traps have been laid to snare a 5m crocodile.
“He’s a crafty one,” Cooper said with a laugh, his voice barely audible over the roar of the outboard motor. “We haven’t got him yet, keeps giving us the slip.”
PHOTO: AFP
But Cooper turned serious as his open-topped aluminium craft approaches a submerged reef where an Indonesian fishing vessel ran aground about three years ago.
“It was stuck, they couldn’t get away that time,” he said.
Cooper is a sea ranger off the Northern Territory’s Arnhem Land, part of an effort by authorities to use indigenous know-how to curb illegal fishing in the remote area.
Under a pilot program, Australian Customs and Northern Territory Fisheries have contracted the Djelk Aboriginal people to patrol a 2,000km² area of water off their traditional coastal lands.
About 30 rangers using six boats conduct daily patrols looking for illegal foreign fishing vessels and Australian commercial fishing boats not authorized to be in the area.
“A few years ago we would see them everywhere,” Cooper said of the foreign vessels, which mainly seek shark fins for Asian markets.
Djelk ranger coordinator Shaun Ansell said the poachers used “incredibly destructive” fishing methods, including gill nets which indiscriminately scour the ocean and long lines that ensnare bird life.
“It was very distressing for our rangers to come across this massive waste of the resources that we all depend on around here,” Ansell said.
He said that the Djelk rangers’ patrols for Customs had been an outstanding success, with the number of foreign fishing vessels sighted in the area falling to zero shortly after they began three years ago.
“It’s been a great partnership between the Djelk and Customs,” he said.
“Customs get local guys who know the area intimately, they’re out there day to day keeping a really close eye on what’s going on — they can detect things in an area where the Australian government can’t put resources on a large scale,” Ansell said.
While large Customs ships still conduct weekly sweeps on the high seas, Ansell said his rangers came into their own in the shallower coastal waters most often targeted by maritime poachers.
“We’ve got the local knowledge and the boats and the skill to get out there into the coastal environment, into all the small creeks where the [illegal] boats go and hide,” he said.
The Djelk rangers have also proved successful against Australian commercial fishing vessels exceeding their quotas or operating in sacred Aboriginal sites, assisting in three successful prosecutions in the past year.
The rangers do not have the power to arrest or apprehend illegal fishers but use high-tech equipment on their patrol boats to immediately report poachers to authorities and then shadow their movements to ensure they do not escape.
They also monitor the coast for crocodiles, relocationg them to uninhabited areas where possible, as well as collecting debris such as nets and driftwood discarded by foreign ships that could harbor exotic pests.
Ansell said if the pilot program was expanded to other indigenous communities it would give Customs a cost-effective way of protecting Australia’s vast northern coastline.
“There’s the potential there to create a web of surveillance right across the remote north,” he said.
It also gives local Aborigines such as Dion Cooper full-time work in an area where jobs are scarce and allows them to protect waters their ancestors have fished for thousands of years.
“I get to go out on patrol and after we do that I sometimes have time for fishing,” he said. “It’s the best job in the world and I get to do it every day.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese