Our team of ten dedicated Sea Shepherd volunteers had spent two days travelling from across Australia, converging in Darwin before flying east to Galiwin’ku. For half the group, this was a return journey, an opportunity to reconnect with the Rangers and rekindle the friendships formed during our 2024 remote.

Once we arrived and settled into the Ranger base, which would be our home on Elcho for the next two weeks, we began preparing for the journey ahead. The following day was spent packing gear, organising supplies, and readying ourselves for the trip to Martjanba on the outer Wessel Islands, one of the most remote and ecologically significant regions of the Marthakal Indigenous Protected Area.

Stretching across more than fourteen thousand square kilometres of Aboriginal freehold land and surrounding Sea Country in North-East Arnhem Land, the Marthakal Indigenous Protected Area is a place of extraordinary cultural and environmental importance. The Marthakal Homelands Resource Centre Aboriginal Corporation are the managers and guardians of the Marthakal IPA - with the Gumurr Marthakal Rangers as an important program for the Marthakal Group.

Managed by the Gumurr Marthakal Rangers since its declaration in 2016, this vast area is home to thirty-five homeland communities and at least twenty two threatened species, including the last known Northern Territory populations of the golden bandicoot. Its coastal waters provide vital habitat for sea turtles such as the Leatherback, Flatback, Hawksbill, and Green, as well as migratory shorebirds protected under international agreements.

This is a living landscape where ancient Yolŋu knowledge meets modern conservation, guided by the deep custodianship of the Traditional Owners and the tireless work of the Rangers.

For years, the Traditional Owners and Rangers had aspired to undertake a major marine debris and ghost net removal project in this region, particularly at Australia Bay, a culturally significant and ecologically vital turtle nesting area heavily impacted by abandoned fishing gear.

Getting there is no small task. The Sea Shepherd and Ranger teams spent more than ten hours travelling by barge from Galiwin’ku to Hopeful Bay on Martjanba, ninety nautical miles off the coast of Arnhem Land. With no infrastructure, phone reception, or fresh water other than a small seasonal creek, this was truly life on the edge of Australia.

Once we made camp, we prepared for the days ahead, knowing that the challenge awaiting us was immense.

The following morning, as the sun rose over the Arafura Sea, we loaded the Rangers patrol boat and set out for Australia Bay. What awaited us there stopped us in our tracks. Stretching just one hundred and ninety metres, the beach was buried beneath decades of plastic pollution. Many of our volunteers had previously joined remote cleanups across Northern Australia, but none had seen anything like this. Standing side by side with the Rangers, we took in the sight and then got to work.

We divided into teams: one focused on clearing the ghost nets tangled across both ends of the bay, while the other began the painstaking task of removing thousands of pieces of plastic from the sand, inch by inch under the fierce tropical sun. Over the first fifty metres alone, we removed one point six tonnes of debris, a sign of just how much damage decades of ocean borne pollution had caused.

For the next six days, we repeated the same demanding routine: rising at sunrise, preparing gear and supplies, travelling by boat to the drop off point, and spending long hours on hands and knees under the relentless sun. Each trip had to be carefully timed around tides and the presence of saltwater crocodiles, with the Rangers expertly managing every journey to ensure everyone’s safety.

Each evening, we weighed and recorded the day’s haul, sorted a ten percent sample for data collection, and sat together over dinner listening to the Rangers share stories of Martjanba and their deep connection to Land and Sea Country.

The debris was dominated by single use plastics, bottle tops, personal care items, water bottles, and countless fragments of broken plastic, alongside ghost nets, ropes, and fishing gear discarded by industrial fishing operations that don’t care about the impact of their industry on remote communities.

By the end of the cleanup, we had removed a staggering six and a half tonnes of debris, equivalent to one hundred and fifty-nine thousand individual items, from just one hundred and ninety metre beach. Of that total, two and a half tonnes were large ghost nets, a stark reminder of the ongoing threat industrial fishing poses to our oceans and to the Indigenous Rangers who work tirelessly to protect them.

At the end of the final day, as we stood looking out over a clean Australia Bay, we were filled with pride. The beach once again resembled the place where, in 1803, Matthew Flinders met Yolŋu people he called “The Australians”, believed to be the first recorded use of that term. To see the bay returned to its natural state, ready for the next generation of nesting turtles, was deeply moving.

Our remote cleanups demand everything of our volunteers - time away from family, long travel days, and two weeks of hard physical work without modern comforts. Yet every one of them would say the same: it is worth it. Together with the Gumurr Marthakal Rangers and the wider Yolŋu community, we proved what can be achieved when we work side by side to heal Sea Country.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to the Rangers for their hospitality, guidance, and unwavering commitment to protecting these wild and sacred places. We would also like to thank all the Rangers across this Country who spend every day protecting the wild places we all love. Thanks also to the Gumurr Marthakal Rangers and the wider Yolŋu community who make us feel welcome every time we return to their lands.