After decades of lobbying and legal action, Indigenous fishing rights activists on the New South Wales far south coast are taking their battle to an international level to put a global spotlight on the battle to protect traditional fishing rights and cultural practices.

The International Indigenous Fishing Symposium, held at Kioloa in southern NSW at the weekend, was the second meeting of its kind after the Raporo Ainu people in Japan invited Indigenous fishing rights groups to meet on their traditional lands on Hokkaido Island last year.

Ainu man Koki Nagane, 39, was among the delegates to the Australian conference, which was attended by First Nations advocates from Japan, Taiwan, Canada, Alaska, mainland Australia, and the Torres Strait Islands. 

“Coming to these international gatherings and learning how other international Indigenous groups have forged a way ahead and made successes is a huge empowerment for us,” Koki Nagane said.

“I want to take their way of struggle back to our country.”

In 2020, the Raporo Ainu Nation filed a lawsuit against the governments of Japan and Hokkaido to restore their traditional right to catch salmon in the Urahoro Tokachi River on Hokkaido Island, a practice that has been banned for 150 years.

They lost their case in April and are now taking their appeal to the High Court.

“We don’t have any protection, in Japanese laws or the constitution, for Indigenous rights,” lawyer Morihiro Ichikawa said.

“But we insist on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Japan is a signatory to.”

The court ruling in April found that cultural rights protected under article 27 of the international covenant are limited to a small annual catch of 100 salmon for ceremonial purposes, but not the right claimed by the Raporo Ainu to sustain a livelihood from the fishery.

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On the Canadian west coast, the Haida Nation has just signed a historic agreement with the Province of British Columbia, winning Aboriginal title to all of the Haida Gwaii archipelago.

They are now negotiating with the government over access and management of the islands’ $84-million commercial fishery.

“I think continuing to assert your rights is critical,” Haida man Nang Jingwas Russ Jones said.

“The Haida approach has been more of an incremental approach, so you can make large successes gradually, if you know what you want.

On NSW’s far south coast, Walbunja man Danny Chapman has seen generations of Aboriginal people prosecuted for practising their traditional rights to gather abalone and lobster — rights that are protected under Commonwealth Native Title law but not recognised in state government fisheries management regulations.

“The government has scared most of our people out of the water, through prosecutions, through the threat of going to jail,” Mr Chapman said.

“It’s causing old people like me a lot of angst because it’s scaring off all of our young people and taking away their culture.”

One of the resolutions of this year’s International Indigenous Fishing Symposium was to progress action through a collaborative approach to the United Nations, noting that the shared experiences of Indigenous fishers around the world pointed to systemic exclusion and a failure to protect and uphold human rights.

“There is a great deal at stake for the First Nations that are represented here,” Wirdi man and barrister Tony McAvoy said.

“Their way of life, the skills and beliefs and knowledge, are all attached to living with the salt water.”

For Mr McAvoy and other advocates, a coordinated appeal to the UN was more about applying political pressure rather than binding legal outcomes.

NSW Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty has previously said the government was in consultation with Aboriginal communities, the Aboriginal Fishing Advisory Council, peak fisheries, and marine estate advisory bodies regarding fishing and cultural recognition.

Koki Nagane was interviewed for this story with translation assistance from Professor Jeff Gayman from Hokkaido University.