Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Hinch, for bringing this issue to the attention of the Senate. It is a pleasure to debate the future and the protection of some of our most important wildlife here in the Senate tonight. The Australian Greens always stand for strong environmental and marine protection laws. We know there are monumental pressures on our native animals due to the loss of their habitats as a result of global warming and pollution. For marine animals, we can then add a whole range of other risks: entanglement in nets, boat strikes and other accidental interactions with people. There is absolutely no defendable case that native animals—in this case, dugongs and sea turtles—that are already under this pressure should also be struggling for their survival because of commercial and recreational fishers and hunters.

We categorically condemn the commercial and recreational take of threatened, endangered, vulnerable or protected species, whether on land or in marine environments. In the case of dugongs and varieties of sea turtles, we know that these animals are variously listed as threatened, endangered, vulnerable or protected across northern Australia. Indeed, nearly all species of sea turtles are classified as endangered. That means they are on that trajectory to no longer being with us. So it's shocking that populations of these animals are suffering from poaching and overexploitation.

We're urging the Commonwealth, state and territory governments, through their environmental protection agencies, to commit to much better and closer monitoring of these animal populations, to commit to strong laws that prohibit unsustainable take and to commit sufficient resources to protection or recovery plans, where needed, so that these plans can be successful.

It's also clearly essential that we recognise the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to traditional and ceremonial practices. We know that the traditional owners of sea country care deeply about the conservation of these native animals. We respect the wisdom and custodianship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander traditional owners, which has developed over thousands of years. We also know that there are challenges in relation to the maintenance of cultural hunting practices alongside the conservation work needed to ensure the survival of species. It's important that traditional owners are absolutely engaged in the leadership of this conservation work and that it's not a top-down approach from government.

We see the way forward in addressing these practices that you've outlined, Senator Hinch, is to be strong supporters of the Indigenous ranger program and, in this case in particular, the sea country rangers. Indigenous ranger programs have been very successful in enabling traditional owners to maintain a connection with their land and their sea and, in doing so, to protect native wildlife. We must continue to support and expand the Indigenous ranger programs around the country. I think we should consider looking at what enforcement powers Indigenous rangers should have in caring for their sea country. It's actually not appropriate to have top-down government enforcement. Indigenous rangers want to, and can, protect their country.

Senator Hinch, even though the images that you brought to us today of the slaughtered animals are shocking, we must not lose sight of the fact that there are other multiple and massive threats to our native wildlife. While the hunting of native species is an issue we absolutely need to address, we have to tackle some of the other major issues as well. There are toxic plastics choking our oceans and chronic overfishing. In particular, we need to be tackling and taking serious action on global warming. We could do everything possible today to protect dugongs and sea turtles—but without protecting those animals from the impacts of global warming, all of those measures would be for nothing. We know that dugongs rely upon seagrass populations, and seagrass is very vulnerable to the impacts of severe weather. With the more intensive cyclones, hundreds of kilometres of seagrass can be wiped out. When beaches become inundated, the sand gets hotter and sea turtle populations can be wiped out. We have to tackle global warming. (Time expired)