Northern Australia has millions of hectares of land potentially suitable for marine pond based aquaculture. The majority of this land is owned by Traditional owners and subject to Native Title. Traditional Owner groups have continuously occupied and managed the north for tens of thousands of years and maintain significant interests and control of natural resources, including land, water and sea country. To help realise the possibility for aquaculture and indigenous led enterprises in the North, we are exploring the viability of location appropriate farming options. A community led aquaculture operation has the potential to provide livelihood, training, and business development.
Most aquaculture operations in Australia operate at high stocking densities with a significant requirement for power, feed, access to supporting infrastructure, and expert staff. These attributes make farming profitable but likely unsuitable for remote areas of Northern Australia. The challenges of operating in this region are numerous, including environmental, biological, cultural and regulatory complexity. Non-fed (no input) species such as oysters are an attractive option for farming in remote areas, and several indigenous led enterprises are under development in the north. However, little focus has been put on the potential for fed species.
We propose location appropriate farming methods based on extensive (low input) farming. practice. Low input farming is a viable option for remote locations when species stocked at low densities have the capacity to thrive on the natural available productivity from the environment. Low input farming is being explored with Traditional Owner groups with interest and aspirations in aquaculture. We focus on the opportunity for the marine tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon). We describe a plan to work through the challenges in co-developing the Mapularri demonstration farm on the Tiwi Islands.