Greg Roberts, The Australian 26 Apr 08;
Killing a dugong or turtle is part of the rite of passage to manhood for teenage boys. A feast of dugong and turtle is regarded as essential to the success of an important occasion, such as a wedding, funeral or tombstone unveiling.
PETER Guivarra recalls how the sky would thicken at this time of the year with vast numbers of magpie geese that nested in swamps near his home settlement, Mapoon, on Cape York Peninsula's western side.
With thousands of geese being shot annually by indigenous hunters, Guivarra, chairman of the Mapoon Aboriginal Shire Council, says the bird population is a fraction of what it was 10 or 15 years ago.
Says Guivarra: "There were hundreds of thousands, but now it's thousands and the numbers get smaller every season. I want my sons and grandsons to be able to hunt, but at this rate they won't be able to."
Across the Gulf of Carpentaria, in the wetlands of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, indigenous hunting of magpie geese with shotguns is so prolific that untargeted wildlife are suffering lead poisoning from spent lead shot ingested while foraging for food.
Guivarra is among a growing band of indigenous leaders that believes hunting by their people is excessive and no longer sustainable. The leaders argue that a combination of increased human populations and the use of firearms, vehicles and motorboats has distorted traditional notions of hunting.
"It is easy these days for too many animals to be killed," Guivarra says. He adds that hunting is jeopardising plans by the Mapoon people to emulate Kakadu's success as an ecotourism destination. "We have the same wetlands and waterbirds, but soon there won't be anything for people to come and see," he says.
Debate over indigenous hunting has been ignited by Japan's move to attack as hypocritical Canberra's support for the indigenous harvesting of dugongs in Australian waters. While Australia leads the charge against Japanese whaling, the number of minke whales killed annually by the Japanese - ostensibly for scientific research - is similar to the number of dugongs killed each year for food in the Torres Strait, about 1000. The Japanese point out that the world population of the minke whale is several times that of the dugong.
Dugongs and sea turtles are traditional mainstays of the diet of Torres Strait Islanders and coastal Aboriginal communities in northern Australia, but on Palm Island, off Townsville, indigenous elder De Nice Gaia says her family refuses to hunt or eat them. Gaia says numbers of dugongs and turtles in local waters have fallen sharply. As elsewhere, they can be hunted only with harpoons, but there are no bag limits, set hunting seasons or other restrictions.
"It's not traditional hunting when you're chasing an animal in a dinghy with a 40-horsepower motor, and there's no way it can escape." Gaia says the killing is cruel; for instance, turtle carapaces are removed while animals are alive in the mistaken belief the meat will be more tender using this process. It is also wasteful. "I find turtles dead on the beach with holes in their shells that have been used as target practice."
Gaia says hunting is culturally significant, but technology has reduced its relevance to the community's cultural fabric.
"There is plenty of other meat available these days. Hunting has become a status symbol. Everyone wants the biggest turtle. If someone comes in with a big turtle, three or four boats go out the next day trying to get a bigger one."
In the Torres Strait, Badu Island Council manager Manai Nona explains the cultural significance of hunting to islanders. Killing a dugong or turtle is part of the rite of passage to manhood for teenage boys. A feast of dugong and turtle is regarded as essential to the success of an important occasion, such as a wedding, funeral or tombstone unveiling. Hunting from boats is how islanders develop seamanship skills. Hunts and feasting ceremonies feature prominently in relationships between island communities. "Hunting is very important to our culture," Nona says.
Dugong and turtle are a leading source of protein and fresh meat in often isolated communities where frozen meat imports are expensive and unreliable. "One dugong can feed an extended family of 10 or 12 people for a fortnight," Nona says. "Dugong and turtle is the best meat. I'll have it any day if the choice is rump steak or lamb chops."
However, Nona agrees that too many dugongs and turtles are killed. "We know there shouldn't be so many taken. The last thing we want is to wipe them all out."
Central to the indigenous hunting debate is whether the harvesting of native animals is sustainable. Does it threaten the survival of species being targeted?
In the Iron Range area of eastern Cape York Peninsula, cassowaries - large, flightless birds found in the rainforests of north Queensland and New Guinea - have long been valued as food by the Lockhart River people. The wary cassowaries are difficult to stalk and kill by traditional means, but they are easily shot.
Large numbers of the once numerous birds were shot by indigenous hunters; today, cassowaries - an endangered species in Australia - are rarely seen and the future of the Iron Range population is uncertain.
Federal and state authorities are working to avoid a similar fate for dugongs and turtles. Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says the Government is undertaking a strategic assessment of the Torres Strait turtle and dugong fisheries. Meanwhile, the available scientific evidence suggests that present levels of harvesting the sea animals are not sustainable.
Australia is home to 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the estimated world population of 100,000 dugongs. While the large sea mammals - listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as "vulnerable to extinction in the medium-term future" - range widely in the Indian and southwest Pacific oceans, their numbers have crashed due to hunting pressure and the loss of the seagrass meadows on which they feed. The species is especially vulnerable because it is slow-breeding; a female gives birth to a calf every five years on average.
A new study from James Cook University researchers, commissioned by the federal Environment Department's Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility, reports that surveys in 2006 estimated a population of 23,500 dugongs in the Torres Strait and northern Great Barrier Reef, about 25 per cent of the world total. This is close to the number estimated in surveys in 2000 and 2001, but substantially lower than numbers noted in 1996.
Modelling for the study suggests that killing more than 100 to 200 dugongs annually in the Torres Strait and 56 in northern reef waters - a fraction of the present harvest - is not sustainable. The study also says climate change may be affecting dugong numbers by increasing the incidence of seagrass dieback.
JCU dugong expert Helene Marsh says it is difficult to accurately measure dugong numbers because the animals roam over large areas in search of seagrass, but there are concerns about the harvest level in the Torres Strait. Says Marsh: "Scientific evidence suggests dugongs may be over-harvested by some Cape York communities and in the Torres Strait. The important thing is to work with indigenous people to ensure the harvest is sustainable."
Marsh adds that she disagrees with Japan's use of the dugong catch to defend its whaling practices. "Their whaling is a commercial harvest done under the guise of research. This is an indigenous harvest that goes back 4000 years."
Surveys indicate that about 5000 green turtles are killed annually for food in the northern Great Barrier Reef, the Torres Strait and adjoining Indonesian and Papua New Guinean waters. Queensland turtle research program manager Colin Limpus, one of the world's leading turtle authorities, says the regional breeding population, concentrated on Raine Island, was estimated at 50,000 10 to 20 years ago. Limpus says numbers have fallen significantly since then, with hunting accounting for more than half the loss.
"When you can have a single village taking 100 to 200 turtles a year, it adds up to a lot of turtles," he says. "We have concerns for the population's viability."
Nonetheless, Marsh and Limpus are encouraged that indigenous leaders have begun to address the sustainability issue. Six Torres Strait communities are preparing management plans to limit dugong catches under a program funded by a $4.6 million commonwealth grant, although Marsh says more funds are needed to expand the program. Other communities are co-operating with authorities to control turtle harvesting. South of the Torres Strait, the Girringun people of the Cardwell area and the Woppaburra people of the Keppel islands have reached agreements with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to ban the hunting of dugongs and restrict turtle catches. Hunting critics want to go further.
Legal researcher Rebecca Smith, who was commissioned to prepare a review last year on laws affecting dugongs for the Torres Strait Regional Authority, believes hunting is cruel: "Harpooning, a hideous death for whales, is no less hideous for dugongs and turtles. An adult male dugong takes up to two hours to die. People know these things, but they're afraid to tackle the issue."
The conservation movement, always sensitive about its relationship with the indigenous community, finds itself in a quandary over the hunting row. The Wilderness Society's northern Australia campaigner Lyndon Schneiders says the society does not oppose indigenous hunting in national parks when it complies with park management plans. However, as most plans allow hunting, Schneiders contradicts himself when he says the society opposes the use of guns and vehicles for hunting in all national parks.
Indigenous hunting in national parks and other reserves is especially contentious, and management solutions are not easily recognisable when policies vary widely.
In the Karijini National Park in Western Australia, Aborigines can shoot wildlife for food "for themselves and their families". In Katherine Gorge National Park in the NT, the Jawyn people can hunt freely with guns as long as visitor safety is not compromised. In Queensland's Barron Gorge National Park, no firearms can be used without permission and no endangered or vulnerable species can be hunted.
Says Queensland National Parks Association president John Bristow: "National parks are special areas that should be recognised by everyone. Nobody, including indigenous people, should be able to kill wildlife with firearms in national parks."
Mapoon's Guivarra says the crucial issue is not where hunting is restricted but whether it is sustainable. "Our people know that we have to get it right," he says."We have been managing the country for a long time."
Read more!
Posts
visitors since Nov 07