‘an assessment of the current resilience of the ecosystem …’ within the Great Barrier Reef Region, s 54(3)(e) of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 (Cth).
‘an assessment of the current resilience of the heritage values …’ within the Great Barrier Reef Region, s 176 (3)(e) of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Regulations 2019 (Cth).
The Mandubarra people are a clan of the Mamu-speaking people and Custodians of Mandubarra Land and Sea Country. For Mandubarra Traditional Owners like Mel Ball and Rohann Sultana, their connections extend from jabun (the coast) out across wajali (the sea). Mel and Rohann hold a deep commitment to their Sea Country, their ancestors, and future generations.
The practice of cultural lore, one of many mapped Mandubarra cultural values, is a central tenet of the protection of threatened species for Mandubarra traditional Custodians.
“Turtles are our totem, but it also comes back to turtle rehabilitation. The last few years there hasn’t been any hatchling or nesting, so Uncle James has used turtles’ totemic value to be a way of offering protection for them.”
— Mel Ball, Mandubarra Traditional Owner
Ongoing bajgal (sea turtle), dugong and seagrass monitoring serves a dual purpose: increasing sea turtle numbers and, once established, “to then allow us, in the future, to return to our traditional practices and culture to pass down,” says Mel.
“I feel like us being able to work on Country and to be based on Country, it’s important for value sharing into our community, we have respect for what we hold culturally, and the more people know about what is happening on Country, the healthier country is, the healthier people are, and the more they want to care for Country.”
— Rohann Sultan, Mandubarra Traditional Owner
Central to the Mandubarra Traditional Use of Marine Resources Agreement and the work of the Mandubarra Land and Sea Rangers, is reinvigorating community connection back to their traditions on Sea Country (Section 8.5.2).
“I grew up with my Mum being a ranger. When we’re going onto places we didn’t know had history for us, and when you compare how healthy land and sea was a couple of generations ago, we want to protect and preserve, and the more present we are there, it’s more likely that people and country are healthy.”
— Mel Ball
Conservation programs on Country envelop the community and have revived intergenerational cultural knowledge sharing. Mandubarra have several species protection programs; sea turtle rehabilitation is one of them.
Source: Caring for Sea Country — Traditional Owner Stories from the Great Barrier Reef 1
