Smyth, 1997:

Use and management

"Aboriginal peoples' relationship to their sea country brought with it a complexity of rights and responsibilities, including the right to access, use and distribute resources, and the responsibility to manage those resources through time, from generation to generation. Clan members were owners of their country, they belonged to their country, they were identified with their country and they were stewards or carers of their country. Marine environments were managed through a variety of strategies and cultural practices, including:

• Conduct of ceremonies (songs, dances, story telling and other rituals) with the purpose of nurturing the well being of particular places, species and habitats;
• Control of entry into marine clan estates by outsiders - restricting resource use to clan members and others by agreement;
• Seasonal exploitation of particular marine resources; the opening and closure of seasons were marked by ecological events, such as the flowering of particular plants or the arrival of a migratory bird;
• Restriction on the harvesting of particular species based on age, gender, reproductive conditions, health, fat content etc. of individual animals;
• Restrictions on resource use and distribution by clan members and others based on age, gender, initiation status, marital status and other factors;
• Restrictions on the use of particular animals and plants of totemic significance to individual clans; each clan usually identified closely with at least one natural element (usually animal or plant), the use of which was often highly restricted or prohibited;
• Prohibition of entry to certain areas on land and sea, often associated with storms or other sources of danger; entry and/or hunting and fishing in the these areas was believed to cause severe storms or other forms of danger, not only to the intruders but also to other people in the region.

Together these strategies and practices resulted in a system of marine exploitation which was conservative and which enabled the local population to live within the carrying capacity of the local environment."

Contemporary Indigenous relationships with the sea

"In all coastal regions of Australia there are Aboriginal families and individuals who engage in significant subsistence hunting, fishing and gathering activities in the sea. For these people, subsistence marine resources form an important part of the domestic economy, in addition to being important culturally. This modern dependence on subsistence marine resources, is mostly clearly seen on remote, northern coastal communities where traditional activities such as hunting for turtle and dugong are widely practised. However, subsistence fishing and shell-collecting is also widely practiced by coastal Aboriginal people in southern Australia, many of whom combine working in mainstream jobs and living in suburbs and small towns with maintaining these subsistence activities."

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Citation and/or URL

Smyth, D. (1997). Saltwater Country Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Interest in Ocean Policy Development and Implementation.  Socio-cultural Considerations - Issues Paper 6
Department of Tropical Environment Studies and Geography James Cook University.  Smyth and Bahrdt Consultants in Cultural Ecology © Commonwealth of Australia 1997 ISBN 0 642 54536 7 

Spatial Coverage

Australia

Temporal Coverage

1997

Update Frequency

Not applicable 

Other Information

None