MARINE DEBRIS IN NORTHERN TERRITORY WATERS 2004 WWF-Australia March 2006 © WWF-Australia. All Rights Reserved. ISBN: 1 921031 08 5 Author: Damian White WWF-Australia Head Office GPO Box 528 Sydney, NSW, Australia 2001 Tel: +612 9281 5515 Fax: +612 9281 1060 wwf.org.au Published March 2006 by WWF-Australia. Any reproduction in full or in part of this publication must mention the title and credit the above-mentioned publisher as the copyright owner. First published 2006 For bibliographic purposes, this report should be cited as White, D 2006 Marine Debris in Northern Territory Waters 2004: WWF Australia, WWF-Australia, Sydney. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of WWF. Printed by Image Offset on FSC-certified paper. Cover image: WWF-Australia Anindilyakwa Land Council vehicle heavily loaded with Thai sorting trays and foreign gillnets, Six Mile Beach survey, 2004. For copies of this report, please contact WWF-Australia at [email protected] or call 1800 032 551. World Wide Fund for Nature ABN: 57 001 594 074 WWF-Australia 2 Table of Contents 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4 2. INTRODUCTION 5 3. SURVEY METHODS 7 3.1. Beach surveys 7 3.2. Net Kit reports 8 4. RESULTS 9 4.1. Marine debris surveys 9 General debris 11 Derelict nets 13 4.2. Net Kit reports 14 5. DISCUSSION 16 6. REFERENCES 21 6.1. Personal communications 23 7. APPENDICES 24 Appendix 1. Acknowledgements 24 IMCRA ZONE COBOURG 24 Cobourg Peninsula (Garig Gunak Barlu National Park) 24 IMCRA ZONE ARNHEM-WESSEL 24 Elcho Island 24 IMCRA ZONE GROOTE 24 Cape Arnhem (Dhimurru Indigenous Protected Area) 24 Groote Eylandt 24 IMCRA ZONE PELLEW 25 Bing Bong 25 IMCRA ZONE WEST CAPE YORK 25 Mapoon 25 Stranding reports 25 Appendix 2. Survey locations 26 Appendix 3. Pictorial marine debris survey sheets 27 Appendix 4. Origins of general debris survey sheet 34 Appendix 5. Fishing net survey sheet 35 RUBBISH ON OUR SHORES AND AT SEA 36 Appendix 6. European Article Numbers (EAN International 2004) 37 Appendix 7. Net Kit data sheet 38 WWF-Australia 3 1. Executive Summary The contamination of northern Australia’s marine environment by manmade materials, known collectively as marine debris, is an ongoing concern to all groups utilising, researching and managing the coastlines and waters of northern Australia. In order to determine the extent of the problem WWF-Australia and partner groups have monitored selected sites on the Northern Territory coastline since 2000, while instances of wildlife entangled in marine debris at sea have been recorded by interested individuals since the release of the WWF Net Kit in 2002. This work has been performed in a concerted effort to determine the quantities, composition and origins of the debris found on the shorelines and in the waters of northern Australia and its effects on the marine species that inhabit it. In 2004, thirteen sites covering 28.6 kilometres of beach was surveyed for the presence of marine debris. In total, 57,635 items > 9cm2 were collected or 2,015 items/kilometre. All sites monitored were found to have accumulated quantities of debris, however, sites on either side of the northern Gulf of Carpentaria, Cape Arnhem, Groote Eylandt and Mapoon were found to have accumulated significantly greater quantities of debris. The most frequently recorded items were plastic bottles, bottle tops, lengths of rope, rubber footwear and fishing floats. All items collected were examined for information which might be used to identify the sources of this debris. Results from this examination identified that 87% of all items originated from foreign sources. The sector found to be most responsible for this debris were marine industries such as fishing and cargo shipping. Marine debris has been listed as a Key Threatening Process in Australian waters due to its ability to harm vertebrate species by either ingestion or entanglement and is listed in the Australian Recovery Plan for Marine Turtles as one of the threats to the recovery of marine turtle populations in Australian waters. Harm to vertebrate species by ingestion of synthetic items is yet to be thoroughly investigated in northern Australia and it is the entanglement of marine species in derelict fishing nets that is considered to be of most concern. A total of 406 derelict fishing nets were collected from monitoring sites, weighing a total of 879.3 kilograms, 36% of all debris by weight. The origin of these nets was overwhelmingly foreign, 98%. Foreign fishing nets were also found to be responsible for all recorded wildlife stranding events, five marine turtles and 42 fish on monitoring sites and a further 40 marine turtles and 31 fish and sharks reported to WWF as Net Kit reports. All six marine turtle species found in Australian waters are listed as threatened under Australian environmental legislation and four of the six - the olive ridley, hawksbill, green and flatback turtles - are regularly found entangled in derelict fishing nets. The species most often recorded or reported to WWF were juvenile hawksbill turtles (58%) and sub-adult and adult olive ridley turtles (17%). The quantities of marine debris recorded on northern Australian beaches originating from foreign vessels and the numbers of threatened species being caught in derelict nets by this sector confirm that foreign vessels fishing to the north of Australia are the sector which requires targeted solutions urgently. WWF-Australia 4 2. Introduction The contamination of northern Australia’s marine environment by manmade materials, known collectively as marine debris, is an ongoing concern to all groups utilising, researching and managing this relatively pristine region of the country. Concerns about the harmful effects of marine debris in Australian waters have lead to marine debris being: • listed in the Recovery Plan for Marine Turtles in Australia (Environment Australia 2003) as a threat to the recovery of marine turtles in Australia, and • accepted as a Key Threatening Process (Injury and Fatality Caused by the Ingestion and Entanglement of Marine Life in Marine Debris) under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act 1999). The scale of the problem in northern Australian waters first became apparent in the 1980s when Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and northern Queensland became concerned about the quantity of debris being washed ashore on their traditional lands, bringing with it stranded marine wildlife. However, it was not until the 1990s when Aboriginal communities, industry, state, territory and Commonwealth government agencies and non-government organisations began to actively remove and record the fishing nets and other debris on beaches in northern Australia; and after 2000 that significant funding became available to support larger projects such as the Carpentaria Ghost Nets Programme, which aims to support and fund groups wishing to remove and record marine debris in the Gulf of Carpentaria. On the Queensland side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, several groups became aware of the increasing quantities of marine debris being washed ashore each year and took it upon themselves to remove this debris. In the 1990s, Aboriginal communities and commercial fishers began removing derelict nets without recording their activities. One of the first groups to record its activities was Carpentaria Contracting, a private company operating out of Weipa, which began removing derelict nets from the northern Gulf beaches in 1993 (Hugh Edwards pers. comm. 2004). Further groups also became involved in marine debris removal when in 1998 the Mapoon Rangers and the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency began examining and removing derelict nets and recording stranded wildlife in the Mapoon region (Lawry Booth and Cecil Woodley pers. comm. 2004). A further Aboriginal group, the Napranum Rangers (Weipa), began removing and recording derelict fishing nets on beaches north of Weipa in 2002 (Richard Barklay pers. comm. 2004). In the Northern Territory, two Aboriginal groups, the Dhimurru Land Management Aboriginal Corporation (Dhimurru) in Nhulunbuy and Anindilyakwa Land Council (ALC) on Groote Eylandt began to address the issue of marine debris on their traditional lands. The ongoing Dhimurru Turtle Recovery Program was launched in 1996 after the Dhimurru Rangers and Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission had examined Cape Arnhem in 1996 and found the area was indeed being inundated by derelict fishing nets and other marine debris. Each year participants in the program monitor a stretch of coastline partly contained within the Dhimurru Indigenous Protected Area (Dhimurru IPA), rescuing turtles stranded in derelict fishing nets, recording biological information about the turtles and sampling the nets responsible (Roeger et al. 2004). Their continued work and promotion of these activities in various media have successfully maintained the profile of the issue in Australia and influenced other groups in the region. At about the same time as Dhimurru was developing its Turtle Recovery Program, the ALC on Groote Eylandt was raising concerns with the Australian Fisheries Management Authority and Northern Prawn Fishery Management Advisory Committee about the amount of fishing debris washing ashore on the island. It was assumed by the ALC, at the time, that this debris originated from the Northern Prawn Trawl Fishery (NPF), as these were the vessels observed WWF-Australia 5 fishing the waters around Groote Eylandt. Their lobbying was successful and lead to a clean up and survey of accessible beaches in 1997–1998 (Sloan et al. 1998). Results from this survey demonstrated that the NPF was partially responsible, as 35% of nets were attributed to the NPF. However, the remaining 65% was found to originate from foreign vessels and all observed wildlife strandings were caused by foreign nets. Unfortunately the survey was not repeated. In 1999, the WWF Marine Debris Program was established, after WWF responded to concerns raised by the Yolŋu people of north east Arnhem Land about the impact of marine debris on their beaches and marine turtle resources.