The Reef Authority is celebrating 20 years of partnering with Traditional Owners in managing Sea Country on the Great Barrier Reef.
The 20 years of Sea Country work comes as the nation marks NAIDOC Week 2025 with the theme: “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy”, from July 6 to 13.
Traditional Use of Marine Resources Agreements (TUMRAs) recognised Traditional Owner rights and interests (Native Title) and traditional use of marine resources, including hunting and gathering across the Reef.
Girringun TUMRA, which covers six Saltwater Traditional Owner groups around the Hinchinbrook region in north Queensland, was the first to be signed into being in December 2005.
There are now 10 TUMRAs involved in the Reef Authority program, covering more than 43 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef coastline.
The agreements are co-management partnerships supporting local Traditional Owners to manage their Sea Country by determining development priorities aligned with their cultural values.
They provide a platform that supports Traditional lore, customs and cultural authority governance —underpinned by 60,000 years of Traditional knowledge combined with the latest science, innovation, and research.
Reef Authority TUMRA program manager, Brooke Owens said the program has evolved significantly over the past 20 years.
“Today TUMRAs provide employment opportunities, build capacity, encourage leadership, manage traditional hunting, support cultural heritage protection and undertake compliance.
“Through agreements, Traditional Owners are managing threats to the Reef including coastal development, poor water quality, illegal and unsustainable fishing, and eradication of crown-of-thorns starfish.
“Traditional owners have been linked to and managed their Sea Country across the Great Barrier Reef for millennia. It means so much to see TUMRAs across such a large part of the Reef, and to support Traditional Owners as they sustainably manage their Sea Country.”
“At the Reef Authority we are really proud of the achievements that have come from the TUMRA program, and we’re really excited to keep working with Salt Water Traditional Owners and to see where the program takes us.”
Uncle Leonard Andy, a proud Djiru Traditional Owner has been connected to the Girringun TUMRA since it began, first through his father who was part of the team to establish the TUMRA in 2005, and now through his own involvement as a steering committee member.
“When it was first established it had a lot to do with cultural resources. We wanted to stop poaching of turtles and dugong and to manage cultural resources for the future,” Mr Andy said.
“It started off with permits for hunting, but then it moved more into research, and education.
“It’s important that we can educate the wider community, and to get our young people involved with their culture and their responsibilities on the land and the ocean.”
Girringun TUMRA Coordinator, Jade Pryor also has a long-standing connection to the TUMRA. She said Elders were instrumental in paving a path that ensured Traditional protocols and policies were not lost or forgotten.
“They did this for the younger generation, and it speaks volumes about what they saw back then and what it could lead to,” Ms Pryor said.
“Today we are seeing sea grass and dugong monitoring projects, blue carbon projects, fish and mangrove monitoring.
“But it is more than that. The TUMRA gives our Traditional Owners a seat at that table to say this is how we want to manage our Sea Country.
“I had grandparents who were heavily involved in caring for our Country and People. They instilled in me a legacy of caring for country and working with other Traditional Owners. Now I want to see opportunities not just for this generation but for generations to come.”
Accompanied by Traditional Owners or rangers, children are taking in Traditional knowledge, while learning methods to survey the Reef.
“Seeing the looks on the faces of the young ones as they learn how to snorkel for the first time is beautiful,” Jade said.
“One of our young ones has fallen in love with it that much, she wants to become a marine biologist.”