Suchergebnisse

Contested Rights of Access --Bajo Settlement History --The Maritime World of the Bajo --Bajo Voyages to the Timor Sea --Australian Maritime Expansion --Bajo Responses to Australian Policy --Sailing, Fishing and Trading in 1994 --An Evaluation of Australian Policy.

This book, Natasha Stacey's Boats to Burn, is a study of considerable importance for an understanding of maritime relations in the Arafura and Timor Seas. The Arafura and Timor Seas link Australia and Indonesia. These seas provide more than just a source of shared resources; they also offer a common history of maritime involvement. This book explores this critical, but little known maritime history and considers its implication for the present. Boats to Burn focuses on the role of a distinctive population, the Bajo or Bajau Laut, who are remarkable for their sailing and fishing traditions. Known as the 'sea nomads' of the region, the Bajo have established themselves throughout eastern Indonesia searching out marine resources — trepang (or sea-cucumber), shark fin, turtle and trochus shells — and feeding these products back into a trade network linking island Southeast Asia to the Asian continent. Bajo migration has been integral to the maritime development of eastern Indonesia. In the seventeenth century, the Bajo were primarily established on many of the small islands of the Sulawesi region; by the 18th century, they had sailed southward and had reached Roti, the southernmost island of the Indonesian archipelago. Records of the Dutch East India Company from May 1728 report a Bajo fleet of some 40 small family boats searching for trepang first along the southern coast of Roti and then in the Bay of Kupang. The Bajo thus sailed as the advanced scouts for other Macassans, particularly the Bugis, searching out new areas for gathering trepang.By 1750, Dutch Company officers began issuing formal letters of permission to Macassan boats to allow them to gather trepang without hindrance. These letters covered not just the Timor coast but also the coasts of northern Australia, which was then referred to as New Holland. Describing the situation in northern Australia in the first years of the nineteenth century, Matthew Flinders sketches the beginning of this trepang-gathering industry: The natives of Macassar have long been accustomed to fish for trepang … upon a dry shoal lying to the south of Rotee but about twenty years before, one of their prows was driven by the northwest monsoon to the coast of New Holland, and finding trepang to be abundant, they afterwards returned; and have continued to fish there since that time.(1814, II: 257) If we accept Flinders' account and recognise the "dry shoal lying to the south of Rotee" as Ashmore Reef, then it follows that the Bajo arrival on the northern coast of Australia was roughly contemporaneous with the arrival of Captain Cook in Botany Bay. What is remarkable, however, is not these early dates, but the fact that Bajo sailing patterns at least to the seas in and around Ashmore Reef continue to this day. One of the great values of Natasha Stacey's research has been to trace the historical continuity of Bajo sailing patterns and demonstrate their continued presence in Australia waters even in times when little attention was paid to the area of Ashmore Reef, Cartier Island and the smaller reefs further to the south. For the contemporary period, Dr Stacey focuses on a group of Bajo who originate from two villages in the Tukang Besi Islands of Southeast Sulawesi but have settled at a site, Tanjung Pasir, in the village of Pepela at the eastern end of the island of Rote. While still maintaining close contact with their origin villages in Sulawesi, these Bajo fishermen now regularly sail into Australian waters in search of shark. They form part of a much larger group of eastern Indonesian fishermen who are permitted to fish within an area delimited by the 1974 Memorandum of Understanding agreed upon by Australia and Indonesia. Whereas the Bajo have been doing this for centuries, the majority of other Indonesian fishermen are relative late-comers to shark fishing, particularly shark-fishing in Australian waters. These various fishermen, however, have been able to take advantage of the terms of the MOU that defines 'traditional fishing' by the use of a sailing technology rather than by the continuity of rcognised historical traditions – a situation that has greatly disadvantaged the Bajo. Dr Stacey's study raises a range of critical policy issues in regard to the rights of access to fishing. These issues have become even more complex as resources in the area defined by the MOU have diminished and many fishermen from Pepela, including Bajo, have turned to the use of small, motorised bodi rather than sailing perahu to penetrate deeper into Australian waters in pursuit of shark. This has been met by concerted apprehension efforts in the past few years, forcing further shifts in the dynamics of this 'traditional' fishery. Dr Stacey's research relates to the period prior to these latest developments. She did her fieldwork in 1994-1995 with further follow-up research in 1997. Her study is nonetheless particularly relevant to an understanding of small-boat – so-called 'traditional' – fishing in the region. The explorer-navigator, George Windsor Earl, described the Bajo as a 'singular people'. He encountered the Bajo when they visited Port Essington in 1840 and wrote of his plans, which he never succeeded in carrying out, of sailing with them in eastern Indonesia. By contrast, Dr Stacey has done what Earl never managed to do. She has lived with Bajo in their villages and sailed with them over long distances; thus she has come to know them intimately and appreciate the dilemmas they face. Her book is a plea for the recognition of these 'singular' people whose world has been radically altered by international regulations, large-scale commercial fishing, and ever-diminishing resources for small-boat fishermen. Ultimately this is a book in which good ethnography raises critical questions for public policy. The impoverishment of the coastal communities in eastern Indonesian whose previous livelihoods depended, in part, upon access to Australian waters calls for efforts at redress. The absence of alternative livelihoods for these fishermen leaves them with few options but to continue to sail into Australian waters, taking greater risks in the process. This situation is particularly acute for the Bajo who have little access to land. Each apprehension only increases the impoverishment that has prompted the problem in the first place. We may all hope that this book will serve as a catalyst for further cooperation between Indonesia and Australia in addressing the problems of the Bajo and other poor fishermen of eastern Indonesia.

Under a Memorandum of Understanding between Indonesia and Australia, traditional Indonesian fishermen are permitted access to fish in a designated area inside the 200 nautical mile Australian Fishing Zone (AFZ). However, crew and vessels are regularly apprehended for illegal fishing activity outside the permitted areas and, after prosecution in Australian courts, their boats and equipment are destroyed and the fishermen repatriated to Indonesia. This is an ethnographic study of one group of Indonesian maritime people who operate in the AFZ. It concerns Bajo people who originate from villages in the Tukang Besi Islands, Southeast Sulawesi. It explores the social, cultural, economic and historic conditions which underpin Bajo sailing and fishing voyages in the AFZ. It also examines issues concerning Australian maritime expansion and Australian government policies, treatment and understanding of Bajo fishing. The study considers the concept of "traditional" fishing regulating access to the MOU area based on use of unchanging technology, and consequences arising from adherence to such a view of "traditional"; the effect of Australian maritime expansion on Bajo fishing activity; the effectiveness of policy in providing for fishing rights and stopping illegal activity, and why Bajo continue to fish in the AFZ despite a range of ongoing restrictions on their activity.

Made available by the Northern Territory Library via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT). ; Research was carried out on South Goulburn Island, Northern Territory, to improve understandings of local, Indigenous people's dependency on marine resources, and of their perspectives on climate change, and aquaculture as a means towards adapting to climate change. Workshops and interviews were carried out mostly with women, but also some men with an emphasis on the use of participatory and visual techniques to encourage discussion of the future. - Abstract ; Abstract -- Executive summary -- Objectives of the research -- Background -- Research activities and method -- Results and outputs -- Discussion and summary -- Gaps and future research directions -- Key learnings for Northern Territory Government policy on aquaculture -- References -- Appendix 1-4 ; Logos on cover: National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory Government and Australian National University

Joint management of protected areas by indigenous people and government management agencies is being promoted at the international level as a tool to strengthen the protection of biodiversity and the recognition of indigenous peoples' interests in protect

Conservation organisations are faced with the complexities between protecting forests, developing local livelihoods and strengthening institutions. The aim of this paper is to analyse the strategies employed by organisations to implement conservation and development, and to assess how project progress is improved by project operations. This paper analyses 42 projects working in 15 conserved forest sites in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. We use multivariate techniques on a large set of variables to explore patterns between sites, project activities and management. The major threats to biodiversity in the Lower Mekong are hunting and logging. Primary site-level conservation projects focus significantly on law enforcement, but also use developmental and institutional building tools to reduce pressure on conserved areas and improve both conservation and development outcomes. Although achieving the combined goals of conservation and development is necessary in most situations, trade-offs, however, these two goals are common and integrated approaches can sometimes compromise both conservation and development outcomes. Many organisations collaborate with government and non-government organisations and use participatory and consultative approaches with local people to achieve their objectives. We conclude that while integrating conservation and development is often necessary, trade-offs must be acknowledged because they influence project outcomes. Partnerships and consultation with multiple interest groups can greatly improve the effectiveness of project implementation.