Last year, we were able to finally reach the end of Djulpan, a 14-kilometre beach in the region that we had been cleaning alongside the Dhimurru Rangers since 2018. In 2023 we removed close to 13 tonnes from this one stretch of beach, taking the total amount of plastic removed from Djulpan since 2018 to 42.5 tonnes, or over 2.3 million water bottles worth of plastic. The good news is that thanks to the efforts of the Dhimurru Rangers and Sea Shepherd in cleaning this coastal habitat, we have seen turtles return to this beach to nest.

Having completed our efforts at Djulpan, we were excited to have the privilege to work on one of Arnhem Land’s most sacred beaches - Yalangbara. Located on Rirratjingu Clan land, this beach had been selected by the Yolŋu Traditional Owners, as plastic had been piling up on this beach for over two decades.

Yalangbara is one of the most significant creation sites in North-East Arnhem Land, shaped by the Djang’kawu, the first human members of the Dhuwa moiety and ancestors of the Marika family. One of Australia’s oldest dynasties and the custodians of Yalangbara, the Marikas are important figures in Australian art and history. We were extremely privileged to be joined by Mawalan 2 Marika, the senior custodian for this land, for the duration of our clean up.

To get to Yalangbara, we had to fly into the remote community of Nhulunbuy in North-East Arnhem Land. From here we sourced our supplies and packed our transport with enough food, water and equipment to set up base camp at the Bawaka homelands for our two-week mission with the Dhimurru Land and Sea Rangers.

On Monday we headed over to the Ranger base for our safety and cultural induction before heading out with the Traditional Owners and Rangers to Bawaka via 4WD. Once we arrived at Bawaka, the crew leapt into action - keen to set up our base of operations as quickly as possible so we could head to Yalangbara and start the cleanup. On that first afternoon we ended up removing 500 kilos of rubbish from the first 220 meters.

To see such an immense volume of rubbish in this incredibly remote location shocked some of the crew who hadn’t been on a remote clean up before and highlighted just how severely affected this part of the country is by plastic pollution. Once we got back to camp our team weighed the collected trash before counting, sorting and cataloguing 10% of the collected debris. We continued to do this at the end of each day’s clean, with the data collected being shared with the Rangers, Department of Agriculture Fishing and Forestry, and CSIRO as well as being available to any other interested parties upon request.

On the following morning, we set off at sunrise via 4WD, ATV and quad bike to spend our first full day on the beach. Cleaning from sunrise to sunset, we finished our day counting and sorting back at Bawaka. This was the format for the next two weeks and despite the limited shade, hot days, and high humidity, the Rangers and Sea Shepherd crew pushed on determined to restore Yalangbara to pristine condition.

Once we finished collecting and sorting the rubbish each day, we would take the day’s debris to our designated drop off point on the road to Bawaka. From there it was collected every second day by the team from Datjala Work Camp who would then transport it back to Nhulunbuy by truck to the landfill site. Unfortunately, at this stage there are no recycling options available for the debris, so we separated what we could for the arts community and for some of the recipients of Parks Australia's Ghost Nets Innovative Solutions Grants Program to utilise in their projects, as they work to test products and increase the capacity of these innovative solutions for turning debris back into a useful commodity.

As we have noticed on several of our remotes this year, the landscape is consistently changing, and the debris that was seen on this beach just two months earlier when our campaign leader attended the Garma festival was now buried under the shifting tide of sand that forms Yalangbara’s sacred coastline. This meant that our team had to work even harder to remove debris from the sand - finding more and more ghosts nets buried under the sands of time. The debris was similar to what we had previously removed from Djulpan and other nearby beaches, with the majority being post-consumer waste and the rest being ghost gear from the fishing industry.

Once we finished cleaning Yalangbara, we moved onto the neighbouring beach Bilapinya which had an even higher density of plastic. We were able to complete a clean of this beach as well as tackle some massive ghost nets that had been accumulating in the rocky outcrop at the end of Yalangbara. It took us a whole day to clean these rocks, with the group splitting into two - with some Rangers and Sea Shepherd crew working on removing the nets using shovels, knives, hot knives, winches and a 4WD to remove several of the larger nets, and the rest of the team removing the micro and macro plastics that had built up in the crevices over many years.

On the first Saturday we were in town we hosted our second ever and first for Nhulunbuy Sea Shepherd Short Film Festival at Nhulunbuy Town Hall, screening Jeedara, Untrashing Djulpan, and The Endless Tide. Over 70 people attended the short film festival with many great questions coming out of the Q&A session and chat with our crew. Thanks to Nhulunbuy Corporation for providing the venue and equipment to host this free community screening.

We returned to Bawaka on Sunday afternoon refreshed and ready to tackle another week of cleaning. By Tuesday afternoon we had finished cleaning both Yalangbara and the adjoining beach of Bilapinya. On Wednesday we started cleaning Ranura (Cave Beach), moving on to Yukuwarra (Oyster Beach) where we were joined by students from the Yirrkala homelands school and two of the team from Border Force for the afternoon. Together, we were able to finish cleaning up Yukuwarra before tackling the adjoining beach of Djirrkalwul (7 Mile Beach).

At Djirrkalwul we saw a change in the way the debris had accumulated. As this beach is much narrower, most of the debris had been pushed all the way into the vegetation, caves, and crevices where the majority of the crew spent their time on their hands and knees removing it. The other half of the team cleaned the hightide mark and focused on removing as many of the ghost nets as possible that had been buried under the sand. We did not get to finish cleaning Djirrkalwul, but with the permission of Dhimurru Land and Sea Rangers and the Traditional Owners, we plan on returning next year to restore this beach to its pristine state.

Over the two weeks we spent working in partnership with the Dhimurru Rangers, we were able to remove 11 tonnes of plastic pollution from 5.7 kilometres of Arnhem Land’s sacred coastline. This is the equivalent of removing over 611,000 water bottles worth of plastic. The top five items collected were hard bits and pieces of plastic, Water bottle lids, Ropes, water bottles, and thongs.

Post cleanup, we had the privilege of being invited to speak to high school students from two of the local schools - Nhulunbuy High School and Nhulunbuy Christian College. Across the day we delivered five talks about the work Sea Shepherd does both globally and locally, our long history of working alongside First Nations people, and our work with Indigenous ranger groups through our Marine Debris Campaign. We also spoke about how we can all work together to tackle the global plastic pollution crisis and save our oceans.

For our clean up this year we were joined by Mike Smith, the founder of Zero Co, and Kal Glanznig, a youth advocate, counsellor for the Sutherland Shire, and creator of the film Rising Up. It was a great opportunity for us to show these two environmental champions how badly affected Northern Australia is by plastic pollution. Both ocean advocates have participated in clean-ups abroad, but were unaware of how bad the issue is in Australia. For Mike and Kal, this was an eye-opening experience and has motivated each of them to come on board to help spread the word about the extent of plastic pollution in remote Australia.

The Dhimurru Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) comprises approximately 550,000 hectares of Yolŋu land and sea country. This means that each ranger is responsible for an area the size of Singapore.

The Indigenous Rangers Coastal Cleanup Project is by far one of the most effective programs we have been privileged to work with. This program is delivered by DAFF with funding from Parks Australia’s Ghost Nets Initiative. This program funds the necessary resources and manpower to enable the Rangers to join us on these collaborative clean up missions.

Funding from Parks Australia through a Ghost Nets Innovative Solutions Grant has supported Sea Shepherd 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, or the equivalent of over 1.6 million water bottles worth, of plastic from just these two regions.

One of the other great tools they have developed for the Ranger Groups is the Ranger App, which allows Ranger Groups to scan the barcodes of any products they find to identify the product and country of origin and build a data base that they can use to have conversations with the countries whose products are polluting our shoreline. There is also a function within the app that assists in identifying nets to help tackle the issue of ghost nets at the source of origin.

Whilst we were at Yalangbara we used the CSIRO’s coastal survey methodology and ODK app to conduct two sets of coastal transect surveys at Yalangbara, providing them with new data to help with their efforts to understand how marine debris is accumulating - enabling them to inform future projects and policies to reduce litter mitigation across Australia and our closest neighbours.

We once again extend our immense gratitude to the Dhimurru Land and Sea Rangers, and the Yolŋu Traditional Owners of the Rirratjingu and Gumatj Lands on which our efforts took place.

This Ghost Nets Innovative Solutions project received grant funding from the Australian Government.