Reporting by Grahame Lloyd - Remote Marine Debris Campaigner.

The IRCCP is funded through the Australian Government’s Ghost Nets Initiative and delivered in a partnership between Parks Australia, DAFF and Indigenous Ranger teams. The IRCCP supports Indigenous ranger teams, Traditional Owners, and Communities across northern Australia to combat the ever-growing issue of ghost nets and marine debris on coastal Sea Country. Indigenous Ranger groups are supported through a fee-for-service model that provides funding and resources to undertake clean-ups.

This direct investment has supported local jobs, economic opportunities, and economic growth within communities, and has been wildly successful - to date the project has removed over 140,000 kgs or 1100 cubic meters of marine debris, and around 800 ghost nets from Sea Country.

We started to strengthen our relationship with Bruce (from Parks Australia’s Ghost Nets Initiative), Dale and the rest of the IRCCP and DAFF team (or the Ghost Nets Team as we call them,)when we met them in person at the annual Clean Up Groote Eylandt Day in 2022 on the amazing Groote Eylandt. This clean-up is run by the Anindilyakwa Land and Sea Rangers and supported by the Indigenous Rangers Coastal Clean-up Project. From the minute our teams met and started talking about the work we were both doing to tackle the plastic pollution problem and assist Indigenous ranger groups and their communities to clean up these remote beaches, our relationship started to blossom from there.

One of the other great tools the IRCCP has developed for the ranger groups is the Ranger App, which allows rangers to scan the barcodes of any products they find as marine trash in order to identify the product and country of origin, which is building a database of marine debris that is polluting our coastline. There is also a function within the app that assists in identifying ghost nets to help tackle the issue of ghost nets at the source.

After our first meeting, we have stayed in touch on a regular basis to talk about which Indigenous ranger groups Sea Shepherd Australia could start working with in our efforts to tackle the amount of plastic pollution in Northern Australia - particularly the Gulf of Carpentaria, which has long been identified as a global hotspot for marine debris. One of the key components of the IRCCP grants is the funding of nine positions within the ranger teams to coordinate and facilitate clean-ups, education, and a raft of other initiatives to drive action on the issue. So, with the funding in place to support these positions in the ranger groups, we started reaching out to them to expand on the work we were already doing with the Dhimurru and Anindilyakwa Land and Sea Rangers.

After discussions with the Ghost Nets team, we decided to reach out to the Mapoon Land and Sea Rangers. We were interested to see what the level of pollution was was on the QLD side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and with the feedback coming in on the incredible work this ranger group was doing, we couldn't wait to arrive at Mapoon in March 2023 and the clean-up was a huge success. We are lucky to have now conducted two clean ups with the Mapoon rangers at two very different locations, and planning is already under way for next year's collaboration.

In October 2022, the Director of National Parks launched the Ghost Nets Innovative Solutions Grants Program. These grants were designed to support innovative and inspiring projects that will help address the ghost net and marine debris problem across Northern Australia. We decided to throw our hat in the ring and pull together a project to fund our clean-ups with both the Dhimurru and Anindilyakwa Land and Sea Rangers for the following two years, with the idea that if we were successful this would then allow us to further expand our boots-on-the-ground approach, assisting even more of the ranger groups whose sacred shorelines are drowning in a never-ending wave of plastic pollution.

I am pleased to say we were successful with our application, and under the Ghost Net Innovative Solutions Grant we were able to conduct four clean-ups over the last two years - two with the Anindilyakwa Land and Sea Rangers, and two with the Dhimurru Rangers. This enabled us to remove a staggering 30 tonnes making this our most successful collaboration yet. Not only has the Ghost Nets Initiative provided necessary funding to both the ranger groups and Sea Shepherd to conduct these cleans, they have also suported the IRCCP team, joining us on five of these clean-ups so far.

Thanks to this grant funding and the funding supplied to the rangers through the IRCCP, we have been able to redirect funds kindly donated by our grassroots supporters to launch another two additional remote clean-ups in Northern Australia. This means we are now assisting the Dhimurru, Anandilyakwa, Mapoon, Tiwi, and Gumurr Marthakal Rangers and their communities in cleaning up their remote coastlines.

We have planned to add an additional two clean-ups to our calendar for next year, but uncertainty with the future of funding for The Indigenous Rangers Coastal Clean-up Project means this may not be possible. This funding is vital to the ongoing success, impact, and reach of our remote clean-ups.

We call on Minister Tanya Plibersek and the Australian Government to commit to funding the Ghost Net Initiative and the Indigenous Rangers Coastal Clean-up Project into the future, as the current funding ends in June 2025.

The Ghost Net Initiative and The Indigenous Rangers Coastal Clean-up Project is demonstratively valuable to Indigenous communities, ranger groups and vital marine habitats - it's a clear-cut win for both people and planet to continue investing in this program.