Sea Change: Coastal Aboriginal Communities Organize to Reclaim Their Sovereignty in Australia’s Northern Territory
After decades of exclusion from customary rights, Aboriginal fishers are rebuilding cooperative economies with commercial fishing licences, traditional knowledge, mentoring, and a pathway to city buyers
When the British colonized Australia and began populating it with settlers in the late 18th century, the continent’s Aboriginal* and Torres Strait Islander population paid a severe price. Ravaged by disease and pushed to the margins of economic life, Aboriginal people were forced to live as racialized second-class citizens in their own homeland.
*(Throughout this story, we use “Aboriginal” in line with the language used by the communities and organizations featured. Aboriginal is a term commonly used in Australia; many also use “First Nations” or “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples” to recognize the distinct sovereign nations of the continent.)
But even against these obstacles, Aboriginal communities in coastal areas of the Northern Territory—a vast area that makes up about one-sixth of the nation’s landmass—managed to continue making a living as fisher peoples as late as the 1960s.
By tradition, the communities divided coastal areas into “sea countries,” each controlled by individual families, who would only enter their own section of water in small family-owned boats and sell their catch through cooperatives organized with neighbours.
“For a long time, coastal families fished as part of the local economy... People managed their own sea country, worked together through small cooperatives, and supplied food into neighbouring communities... Fishing wasn’t just a source of income; it was a way of life.”
—Jared Copley
CEO, Aboriginal Sea Company
But the Australian government deemed these arrangements inefficient and distributed large boats throughout the region’s coastlines, urging Aboriginal family groups to abandon their small vessels, join forces with neighbours, and fish on the larger boats. These fisher families opted instead to maintain their ways. “People didn’t want to [comply]; they knew their own waters and how to work them sustainably,” Copley says. In the 1960s, according to the story that has been passed down through generations, when Aboriginal fishers declined to accept the demands, the government responded by burning these prized family-scale vessels. The Aboriginal fishing economy in the Northern Territory “just stopped, overnight. Fishing stopped. Everything collapsed.” This extreme act by the government remains a point of trauma among many community elders, a symbol of official paternalism and disdain for traditional ways of life. Many families have upheld fishing traditions in the decades since, but lacking their traditional small vessels, in most cases, the catch provided sustenance, not income.
This shift marked not only an economic shock but also a blow to food security. As fishing as an occupational trade vanished within the communities, the availability of seafood for non-fishing families plummeted.
As a result, the community became more reliant on terrestrial food, much of it shipped in from elsewhere, because the Northern Territory’s arid climate limits the productivity of land-based farming. Meanwhile, in the near-total absence of Indigenous commercial fishers working the water, Australia’s white-dominated commercial fishing industry expanded its control over the water, and a key economic engine for coastal Aboriginal communities stalled, adding to persistent underemployment and poverty.
According to the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory, the poverty rate among the region’s Aboriginal population stands at 54 percent, and 39 percent of residents living in remote areas struggle to find enough food on a weekly basis.
But the story doesn’t end there. A revival of Aboriginal commercial fishing is underway in the Northern Territory, and the region’s coastal waters are re-emerging as a place where Indigenous coastal people can make a living while providing high-quality protein options for their communities. Two key events in the 21st century enabled the change.
The first major turning point was a landmark High Court decision in 2008, known as the Blue Mud Bay case.
Settling a decades-long legal battle between Indigenous coastal communities and the Australian government, the court ruled that Aboriginal land rights under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory—NT) Act extend through the intertidal zone—meaning the tidal waters overlying Aboriginal land, which make up around 85 percent of the Northern Territory coastline, cannot be accessed without permission from Traditional Owners. This ruling established, for the first time, that the NT Government fishing licence does not automatically give commercial or recreational fishers the right to enter those waters. The upshot: No one, including licenced commercial fishers from Australia’s dominant white population, can enter these highly productive waters across this vast area without the permission of Aboriginal communities, under the jurisdictions of the Northern Land Council, the Tiwi Land Council, and the Anindilyakwa Land Council.
That decision marked the beginning of a slow but deliberate shift: moving from a fishing industry largely controlled by non-Aboriginal operators to one where Traditional Owners have the legal authority, and increasingly the practical capacity, to shape their own coastal economies. Rather than shutting down access overnight, Land Councils and Traditional Owners have since been managing a structured transition region by region. Some areas continued to allow access under temporary arrangements, while others introduced permit systems or negotiated agreements with incumbent commercial fishers. “The long-term focus has been on protecting sea country, honouring cultural authority, and creating opportunities for local people to build their own fishing and seafood enterprises,” says Copley.
The second major milestone grew out of the post–Blue Mud Bay transition. In the Australian political system, each region’s Aboriginal people are represented by entities known as land councils, charged with promoting and protecting land rights. In 2022, the Northern Land Council (NLC)—which represents the Northern Territory’s coastal area—established the Aboriginal Sea Company, with support from the Tiwi Land Council and the Anindilyakwa Land Council. The NLC acted in response to strong community calls for an Aboriginal-owned organization that could turn sea country rights into genuine food security and economic opportunity. As Copley explains: “The Aboriginal Sea Company was created to give coastal communities the structure, training, and support needed to build their own fishing enterprises in a way that strengthens both culture and local food systems.”
Launched with AU$1.9 million (US$1.2 million) in startup funds—mostly from the Northern Territory Government and the Australian government-backed Cooperative Research Centre for Developing North Australia—the Aboriginal Sea Company remains in a formative phase. Copley, who grew up in a Northern Territory Aboriginal Larrakia community and served as executive project officer for three years, took the helm as CEO in October 2025. He and his team have big plans—and a keen sense of the challenges they face.
“Australia is a big place,” he notes. Shoreline communities are often hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres away from a market destination. On top of this spatial challenge, generations of state-sanctioned racism and disinvestment have tamped down community-led economic development in the region. The Aboriginal Sea Company hopes to surmount these obstacles by giving coastal Aboriginal people the means and inspiration to reclaim coastal waters as a community-led economic engine, a status that ended with the government’s attacks on small boats in the mid-20th century. ASC provides access to expensive fishing licences, training, mentoring, back-office services, and lucrative urban markets. The goal: minimizing the massive risk inherent in launching a community-scale remote business involving perishable food. The fishers “can take community control … They can fish areas that are culturally appropriate, and not fish other areas; they can sort what they want to come out of the water sustainably,” Copley says. “The other stuff can be taught to them over 5 to 10 years, however long it’s going to take.”
For small community-based seafood operations, he adds, another daunting challenge is marketing. And ASC has a plan for that, too: “In the beginning, we take the pressure off communities by providing as much support as possible, particularly around the logistics side of things.” As the model progresses, “people can choose to take on more of the business side themselves, but early on it’s about keeping things simple and steady.” Over time, Copley adds, many of them will develop the business skills to do their own marketing. But initially, taking such logistical challenges off their backs is crucial to their survival. In 2023, ASC dramatically upped its marketing heft by acquiring the Darwin Fish Market, an established seafood retailer in Darwin, the Northern Territory’s most populous and highest-income city. As commercial fishing in the region coalesces, the foothold in Darwin serves as a ready destination for the catch and a steady market for Aboriginal fishers.
Managing licensing issues is also crucial. While coastal sea country now effectively belongs to Aboriginal communities, the government still requires commercial fishing licences and maintains overarching sustainable fisheries management restrictions. The Blue Mud Bay decision did not change ownership of the limited fishing licences existing at that time, and the government indicated that no new licences will be issued. That means licences must be purchased at market price from their non-Aboriginal holders. One of ASC’s key roles is therefore to secure funding to buy commercial licences, which can then be sustainably made available to Traditional Owner groups. ASC already holds thirteen mud crab licences, giving locals access to a strong market with relatively few logistical or infrastructure hurdles, since mud crabs are sold live, are robust in transport, and don’t require heavy refrigeration.
Aboriginal Sea Company offices in Darwin, Australia. Credit: Michael Major, Cultivate Communications.
Aboriginal Sea Company offices in Darwin, Australia. Credit: Michael Major, Cultivate Communications.
Kylie Fadelli, ASC Operations Manager, and Jared Copley, ASC CEO at the Darwin Fish Market. Credit: Michael Major, Cultivate Communications.
Kylie Fadelli, ASC Operations Manager, and Jared Copley, ASC CEO at the Darwin Fish Market. Credit: Michael Major, Cultivate Communications.
Sea Farmer Theodore Kormin-Kormin Dooling preparing crab pots. Credit: Michael Major, Cultivate Communications.
Sea Farmer Theodore Kormin-Kormin Dooling preparing crab pots. Credit: Michael Major, Cultivate Communications.
Many community members currently choose to use an Aboriginal Coastal Licence (ACL) rather than a full commercial one. Every Aboriginal community member is eligible for an ACL, which costs just AU$50 a year.
While there are limits on what gear can be used and the amount of catch that can be harvested, these licences suit people who want to fish on a smaller scale while still earning a meaningful income. “Some fish to supply their local shop, while others drive their catch into Darwin once or twice a week and sell directly to the Darwin Fish Market. It keeps seafood in-country and supports local livelihoods,” says Copley. These licences can also operate as an intermediate training step for people who want to test the waters of commercial fishing before jumping in. ASC, of course, is there to facilitate the training and provide mentor-fishers to help them build their skills, confidence, and independence in the seafood industry.
“ACLs also give people a practical way to build their skills and confidence before stepping into bigger fisheries,” Copley says. Fishers learn safe handling, icing, transport, reporting, and basic business practices while earning a meaningful income from their own sea country. ASC supports licence holders through training, mentoring, and compliance assistance, and provides guaranteed marketing pathways that help fishers operate independently. "In many communities, ACLs are the first rung on the ladder into commercial fishing, offering a culturally familiar and low-risk way for people to participate in the seafood industry while staying connected to their country,” he adds.
The mentors also say they are finding themselves again, reminding themselves of their own linkages to sea country and their heritage. More often than not, the mentors are also learning lessons from the traditional fishers who have an intimately detailed knowledge of their sea country and its rhythms in time and space. The mentors, therefore, logically promote a cooperative learning journey that works both ways and sets a great example of how communities should be engaged effectively with true respect. First and foremost, they operate with a humility that enables them to learn from local traditional experts while taking the time required to build important, respectful relationships.
In addition to these services, ASC can help community members leverage existing opportunities for startup funding. Copley points to Aboriginal Investment Northern Territory, which collects mining and other royalties owed under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1976) and distributes them across Northern Territory Indigenous communities. ASC itself can draw and reinvest a limited amount of that money, but the larger opportunity lies in offering nascent commercial fishing communities the business infrastructure to put those investment funds to productive work.
The Aboriginal Sea Company’s mud crab processing facility in Humpty Doo, Northern Territory packs crabs for shipment across Australia. Credit: Michael Major, Cultivate Communications.
The Aboriginal Sea Company’s mud crab processing facility in Humpty Doo, Northern Territory packs crabs for shipment across Australia. Credit: Michael Major, Cultivate Communications.
"I'm here to keep this culture going for my grandfather and I'll do it till I pass it down to my kids." Dooky Bronson at his traditional fish traps at Glyde Point, Northern Territory – keeper of a fishing culture spanning three generations. Credit: Michael Major, Cultivate Communications.
"I'm here to keep this culture going for my grandfather and I'll do it till I pass it down to my kids." Dooky Bronson at his traditional fish traps at Glyde Point, Northern Territory – keeper of a fishing culture spanning three generations. Credit: Michael Major, Cultivate Communications.
“What we have done is to say to our fourteen communities: You go for the fund; we’ll support you in our business model. You own the boats, you own the cars, all the gear; we’ve got the licence and the marketing channels,” Copley says.
One immediate challenge for ASC arose when the Northern Territory government announced a phase-out of gillnets, the dominant gear used for decades to catch barramundi, a highly prized species. While pressure for the looming ban came from Aboriginal communities who brought to light evidence of harm from gillnets to non-target species like dolphins, dugongs, turtles, and crocodiles, the move calls into question the communities’ ability to access the lucrative barramundi market and thus make good commercial use of their fishing licences. Copley says the group is experimenting with a gillnet alternative straight from the region’s traditions: fish traps, which can be designed to maximize the barramundi harvest while minimizing bycatch and enabling the unharmed release of any unwanted catch.
A community member named Dooky Bronson has constructed traps based on his family’s traditional design and has installed one on the Tiwi Islands that’s already proving productive. “At the moment, they are catching the fish and giving it away for free, just to feed the community, look after the old people and such,” says Copley. “They are now asking us how do they commercialize it and use it as a commercial operation where they sell their catch back to Darwin.” Before long, traps made from Bronson’s clever design could be placed throughout the coastline, responsibly tapping into the barramundi market. “It’s an easy way for people to fish—and it’s a traditional way to do it as well,” Copley says. While the method requires daily checks at low tide, it’s also quite flexible—if fishers know they’re not going to be able to turn up for a few days, they can simply remove one of the barriers, enabling fish and other wildlife to come and go as they wish.
ASC also aims to be a force for gender equity in the Northern Territory. “While men have traditionally dominated commercial fishing in the Northern Territory, women are emerging as a driving force in the new generation of Aboriginal fisheries,” says Kylie Fadelli, ASC’s operations manager. “ASC has intentionally created entry points for women through training programs, work experience placements at the Darwin Fish Market, and mentoring pathways that connect local leaders with young women exploring seafood careers.”
Copley says this shift is essential: “Women have always been the backbone of community food systems, and their involvement makes the industry stronger. When women have access to skills and income, the whole community benefits.”
As these projects percolate, ASC is embarking on a new venture in Wadeye, a remote village of 2,800 inhabitants located 420 kilometres southwest of Darwin that encompasses one of the largest Aboriginal enclaves in the nation.
“It’s in the news for all the wrong reasons—for a lot of violence and crime,” says Copley. Wadeye has high rates of unemployment, economic stress, and chronic disease compared to Northern Territory averages. After trips to Wadeye to meet with community members, ASC is now facilitating the launch of a mud crab venture there, making available two of ASC’s mud crab licences. The plan is to launch a local shop to sell the catch. “Being able to sell the catch directly in the community is a major step forward,” says Fadelli. Even more so than other parts of the Northern Territory, Wadeye residents largely rely on food shipped in from great distances, which “in many cases is not fresh by the time it reaches the shelves,” she says. “Having access to locally caught seafood means the community can enjoy fresher, more affordable, and healthier food while also supporting local jobs and keeping value in the region.”
The Wadeye crabbers plan to move any excess to the Darwin Fish Market. In January 2026, the project did just that—it sold its first crabs at the Darwin market, its first sale outside of Wadeye. “It was a really special day, and the whole community was incredibly proud,” Fadelli says. “There was also a lot of media interest, with both local and federal politicians attending or sending representatives to attend on their behalf, which helped shine a positive light on what the community has achieved—hopefully it helps show other communities what is possible.”
Initially, the venture will also bring dozens of quality jobs to a community hungry for them, requiring fishers to catch the crab, processors to prepare it for market, and retail workers to staff the local shop that will sell it. And ASC will provide mentoring at each level. “We will host several women from Wadeye at the Darwin Fish Market so they can see how the market works,” says Fadelli. “And some community members who will be fishing the licences will travel to Darwin to spend time with our mud crab team. This will allow them to learn how crabs are graded, processed, and packed for delivery.” Ultimately, the hope is to generate more crab than can be consumed locally and to send the excess to Darwin—generating more income and jobs in Wadeye.
Operating there will provide a test case for whether ASC’s economic-empowerment ambitions can succeed throughout the Northern Territory. “There’s always rioting and that sort of stuff plastered over the newspapers,” says Copley. A successful mud crab venture, one that draws in large swaths of people and increases local income and food security, “would be a massive win for everyone.”
His vision is that the company helps people gain the skills and confidence to make a living from the sea; provides the business framework needed for communities to harvest, process, and sell their own seafood; and supports the formation of cooperative models that keep value in community and improve access to fresh, affordable food in places where store prices are high and supply chains are unreliable.
“For many coastal communities, this represents the beginning of a long-term shift from dependence on external operators to genuine self-determination over sea country, livelihoods, and local nutrition,” Copley says. As the fishing economy takes off, Copley and his team see great potential for increased food security in an era when climate change—in the form of more frequent and severe droughts—is pinching agricultural production in Australia’s faraway breadbasket regions, which the Northern Territory largely relies on for provisions. “The communities are the first ones to get cut off if there is a drought, in terms of no fresh food coming from the southern states,” says Copley. Dooky Bronson’s fish traps, and others like them, can generate an aquatic-food buffer for such inevitable lean times.
Throughout the north, he adds, many coastal communities rely almost entirely on barged- or flown-in food. High transport costs mean basic groceries are often two or three times the price of those in major cities, while fresh protein can be scarce or poor quality by the time it arrives. Heightened chronic disease rates reflect this imbalance. ASC sees local seafood as a direct and immediate tool for treating these ills.
“When fishers are harvesting from their own waters and selling or sharing it locally, families access healthier protein, children see culturally relevant food on their plates, and distant supply chains become less of a vulnerability,” Copley says. “ In this sense, building a community-owned fishing sector is not just an economic strategy, it is a health and nutrition strategy.”
Key Takeaways
Echoing the original dispossession of Aboriginal territory by British settler-colonialists, the government’s mid-20th-century push to force Indigenous Peoples to adopt larger boats—to the extreme of burning the smaller ones—effectively ended Aboriginal participation in commercial fishing. It demonstrated severe disrespect for traditional fishing methods as well as for the community’s oceanic tenure, or “sea country.” Traditional fishing on a subsistence basis continued, but Aboriginal-owned businesses collapsed. ASC is working to revive the Northern Territory commercial fishing economy by leveraging, not destroying, traditional fishing practices. When communities commercialize with a conscience, they avoid industrial fishing practices—such as discarding bycatch or high-grading target catch— because all catch is regarded as valuable food.
To recognize and protect traditional use rights, the Northern Territory’s Fisheries Management Act 2007 codified Aboriginal peoples’ right to traditional fishing practices, exempting them from regulations so long as the catch isn’t sold commercially. Critics warned that Aboriginal communities would deplete fish stocks and ecosystems in the absence of regulations designed to control industrial fishing fleets; instead, fish stocks remain robust under community-led management.
In the Aboriginal Sea Company model, fishing communities can maintain traditional rights and practices while fully participating in commerce. This is possible because ASC buys and owns commercial fishing licences issued in limited numbers by the Australian government. ASC essentially holds these licences in trust while supporting Aboriginal fishers to commercialize their formalized rights to coastal resources within their traditional sea country. While the dominant assumption is that traditional Indigenous fisheries management must accommodate itself within “Western” sustainable fisheries management practices, this example demonstrates that the two can coexist, empowering communities to claim a fair stake of the nutritional and commercial benefits available from local natural resources.
A key benefit of this initiative is that the licence fees are no longer priced beyond the typical means of Indigenous Peoples. While ASC could leverage its power to simply buy up fishing licences and lease them to the highest bidder, its team treats licences as the property of the communities and helps communities sustainably maximize benefits available from their formalized rights. To enable communities to learn about the fishery, ASC offers a rotational opportunity for community members to share a vessel without having to commit to fishing all day, every day. This enables them to maintain terrestrial food-gathering and other duties as they learn the industry. Incentives are aligned: People are only paid when fishing, and no licence fee is charged during this learning phase. The arrangement ensures a sustainable commercial benefit for the Aboriginal people who participate, while developing a program that can benefit many generations indefinitely.
In 2008, the Blue Mud Bay case overturned King Richard’s Magna Carta and empowered Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory to restrict access to their sea country—any waters that are within the mean low tide watermark. This shift in formalized ownership has also motivated further efforts to protect and sustainably commercialize these natural resources. Moreover, it sets an important precedent on the global stage, serving as a beacon of hope and a potential core demand for coastal Indigenous communities worldwide advocating for their rights.
Most community-led initiatives can benefit from practical, hands-on support. But it doesn’t have to come from outside experts who don’t understand the dynamics on the ground. ASC’s mentor-fishers guide the organization in determining which communities are best suited to pursue particular opportunities based on what they observe in the field. Donors should aim to directly fund such mentorship programs and help communities span the fishing–farming nexus while claiming their rightful stake in food-systems economics.
As part of their resistance to this change, Australia’s national seafood industry warned that shifting power to Indigenous Peoples would lead to conflict. ASC has shown such scaremongering to be unfounded. The organization has been effectively pursuing partnerships and deliberate ownership transitions. One partnership—with a 20-year leader of the region’s mud crab industry, who invited Indigenous Peoples to shadow him during daily work and learn directly from him—provides a hopeful example of collaboratively building greater equity and sustainability into a commercial system. Ultimately, ASC purchased his business and equipment at fair prices and relocated company facilities to a property they own.
The government’s intention to ban gillnets—the primary commercial gear for valuable barramundi—has prompted ASC to propose an alternative: well-constructed, licenced, and sustainably managed tidal traps, a traditional technology innovation. When implemented correctly, these traps could enable lower-cost, lower-carbon-footprint fishing opportunities that address most, if not all, of the issues posed by gillnets. Negotiations are ongoing to secure government approval for the transition from nets to traditional tidal traps, but properly managed traps appear to offer a viable alternative to gillnets, allowing fishers to decide what to take or release alive. In one neat shift, this initiative promises both flexibility and practical solutions to fishery concerns while empowering communities on their own terms.
Community-based organizations, like the Aboriginal Sea Company, are powerful conduits to turn policy into action. ASC navigates government relations and political minefields on behalf of the communities it serves, translating policy outcomes into action on the ground. Without such a link, communities could be unaware of policy shifts that affect their lives, potentially causing them to miss out on benefits or leaving their traditions vulnerable to being undermined by commercial or political interest groups. By navigating the often tangled web of policies and regulations, ASC helps communities focus on their needs and sustainably commercialize their now-secure rights. Well-financed national lobbying groups consistently support the interests of commercial and recreational fisheries during government discussions, and their resources can overwhelm relatively less-funded entities defending Aboriginal interests, such as the Northern Land Council. Importantly, ASC makes policy information accessible to rural Indigenous Peoples for whom English is not their first language.
Acknowledgements
Storytelling
Jared Copley, Aboriginal Sea Company, Australia
Kylie Fadelli, Aboriginal Sea Company, Australia
Michael Major, Documentary Photographer, Cultivate Communications Australia
Roy Bealey, Lead Researcher, Pelagic Fisheries Consulting Ltd. (PFC), Kenya
Tom Philpott, Journalist, John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, USA
Meena Nallainathan, Global Alliance for the Future of Food, Canada
Beacons of Hope Advisory Committee
We would like to give special thanks to Imani Fairweather-Morrison (Oak Foundation) and Beatrice Gorez (Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements) for the inspiration to keep fishers at the centre of this work and for their wise steering and steadfast support. And special thanks to Leslie Hatfield (GRACE Communications Foundation) for bringing us closer to fisher movements and their stories. And appreciation to Katy Taylor for mentorship, anti-oppression coaching, and helping us grapple with what it means to have an authentic global north-south partnership.
Pak Salman, Fisher, Indonesia
Ahmed Imere, Fisher, Kenya
Gaoussou Gueye, CAOPA, Senegal
Nadine Nembhard, World Forum of Fisher Peoples, Belize
Beatrice Gorez, Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements, Belgium
Nireka Weeratunge, International Center for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka
Niaz Dorry, North American Marine Alliance, USA
Javiera Calisto, Oak Foundation, Chile/Switzerland
Josh To, A Growing Culture, Canada
Global Alliance Aquatic-Terrestrial Foods Nexus Working Group
Oak Foundation
GRACE Communications Foundation
Walton Family Foundation
Erol Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
We also want to thank the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for supporting the evolution of Beacons of Hope.
Global Alliance Secretariat
We appreciate the support of Dharini Parthasarathy and Melanie Moran for their strategic, technical, and creative expertise, and to Lauren Baker and Anna Lappé for editing support. We extend our thanks to the Global Alliance for the Future of Food secretariat for making this publication possible. We extend our thanks to Tracy Bordian for copy-editing, Cultivate Communications for design,creative direction and layout, TINTA The Invisible Thread for interpretation, and Owlingua and Myriam Helou for translation. The Global Alliance for the Future of Food is responsible for the content of this report and any errors or omissions.
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