1993_07_july_seaclaim

Torres Strait Islanders are organising a series of sea-rights claims in the High Court and will ask the court to stop fishing by non-Torres Strait boats.

One claim has already been filed in the High Court by Carlemo Wacando on behalf of the people of Darnley (Erub) and Stephens (Ugar) Islands, claiming the islands and the seas around it.

Mr Wacando said yesterday that he wanted all the councils of elders of islands in the Strait to join his claim. He said fishing by non-indigenous boats should stop immediately.

He has said to the elders of other islands that the only non-indigenous ships to be allowed in a prescribed zone should be service vessels and trading vessels passing through a specified channel. In the long term they should claim compensation from the trading vessels.

The president of the Council of Elders on Murray Island, Doug Bon, said yesterday that he agreed with Mr Wacando in principle. However, he thought his claim could overlap with Murray Island traditional fishing grounds.

Mr Bon said his island had traditional rights over about 40,000 square kilometres of sea and reef.

Mr Bon thought Mr Wacando’s claim was too imprecise and it would be better if each island or group of islands mapped its claims so there was no overlap.

Mr Wacando said that it was better to get the claims in and non-indigenous fishing stopped; the boundaries between islands were of less importance. Fishing on other people’s islands could be worked later “”as brothers”. “”It is not in our blood to be greedy,” he said.

In all, traditional fishing grounds go from 5km off the PNG coast down to Cape York and in waters to the east and west of the tip of Cape York _ perhaps as much as 250,000 sq km.

Murray Island, known as Mer, was the subject of the Mabo case. Some Murray Islanders also want to claim the two other islands of their group, Dauar and Waier, both presently uninhabited.

However, other islanders think this may not be necessary. Father David Passi, an elder and Anglican minister on the island, said people would move to Dauar to live and no-one would stop them. “”They cannot man-handle us,” he said.

The exact status of Dauar and Waier, which can be seen from Mer, is uncertain. Before the Mabo decision the Queensland Government thought them vacant Crown land. Since Mabo, however, the force of the case might be such that no Government or private action would ever be taken that was inconsistent with native title and that therefore no claim is necessary.

Indeed, that might be the position of nearly all the Torres Strait islands which have similar facts to the Mabo case. The sea rights, however, are another matter.

The Torres Strait United Party, of which Mr Wacando is a member, has a scheme to generate electricity from tidal energy using a 160km series of barges across the strait.

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