Add Category
Updated
Two fatal crocodile attacks between 1979 and 1980 had many Territorians ready to wipe out their most famous deadly predator.
Key point:
- Crocodile egg harvesting and ranching brings sustainable benefits to landowners, one expert said.
- He said the Territory program is a "world leading model" that can be used to incentivise communities to undertake conservation
- But the Irwin family are staunchly opposed to croc egg harvesting and farming, which has recently been legalised in Queensland
The species had been threatened with extinction for years, but as numbers started to recover the attacks had people questioning whether the efforts were really worth it.
Yet almost four decades later numbers are thriving, even sustaining a $100-million-a-year crocodile farming industry.
Crocodile expert Grahame Webb attributes the turnaround to a strategy that put a dollar value on the animals' existence and brought sustainable benefits to Indigenous communities and landowners.
Now, he believes a similar strategy could help conservationists worldwide make headway on a vexing question: How could they achieve conservation goals without ruining the livelihoods of local people?
Dr Webb said all too often he saw a blatant disregard for some of the planet's poorest.
"It's just awful some things that have happened in the name of conservation," he said.
"It's often about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
"[But] our program is looked at internationally as something of a model program."
He pointed out that harvesting wild animals also put a value on natural habitats — rather than the land clearing, pesticide use and wetland draining that can accompany domestic agriculture.
His thoughts were echoed by Rosie Cooney, head of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's sustainable use and livelihoods specialist group, who said in most of the world conservation was only viable if it supported local people.
"If local people don't support conservation they're still going to poach, they're still going to harvest resources, they're going to graze their cattle in an area," she said.
"Because they have to."
But not all experts are on board.
The family of the late 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin stand in firm opposition to the strategy, disputing both the science and the ethics underpinning it.
'A lot of people were happy for them to be wiped out'
Northern Territory crocodiles were decimated by hunting between 1945 and 1971, for a "lucrative and uncontrolled" trade in their skins.
But after the species was protected in 1971, numbers increased from about 5,000 to about 30,000 in 1980 and the burden of living alongside a predator quickly made itself clear.
In one year, Dr Webb said two fatal attacks and two serious maulings built a vocal opposition against the species.
"A lot of people were happy for them to be wiped out," Dr Webb said.
"You should have seen the opposition we had."
The only way Dr Webb could see to leverage support was to create a benefit for landholders.
That led to the development of a "incentive-driven conservation strategy", known as "ranching", inspired by a strategy used to protect alligators and swamps in Louisiana.
It allows people to receive payment for harvesting wild crocodile eggs, often seeing collectors lowered out of helicopters into crocodile nests in remote swamps.
The crocodiles then hatch on farms and are raised for the eventual export of their skins.
Dr Webb said today it saw landowners, including traditional owners, earn between $1,000 to $1,500 a nest, or about $20 to $30 an egg.
He said it had a negligible impact on wild crocodile populations because of the species' population dynamics and because the egg phase was a naturally vulnerable part of the life cycle.
The Northern Territory Government has also enforced a harvest limit of 100,000 eggs a year.
Asked if it placed people in danger, Dr Webb said: "I'm the only one I think that's been bitten.
"You'd probably have more injuries in 35 years serving fairy floss at Mindil Beach market.
"And what other business has operated successfully in Arnhem Land for 35 years?"
He said crocodile populations in the Northern Territory had recovered completely since then.
Fashion giants undermining conservation efforts
Fashion giant Chanel recently announced it would stop making products out of "exotic animal skins", because it was too difficult to determine which of them had been ethically sourced.
Conservationist Ms Cooney found the move immensely frustrating, given that harvesting these skins was a vital source of income for many poor and remote communities.
She pointed to Peru as an case study of where a strategy similar to the NT's crocodile harvesting model had worked, noting the illegal trade of yellow anaconda there had been combatted with legal trade, providing a boon for its Indigenous communities.
Similarly in South America, Ms Cooney said the widespread, uncontrolled poaching of the Vicuna — the wool of which is used to make coats that sell for $60,000 — had been replaced with a regulated trade.
She pointed to other examples with pigs in Peru, a giant fish in Brazil, a plant from Georgia and coral in Indonesia.
In her opinion, the fashion giant's blanket ban on skins undermined these efforts.
"I find it so frustrating that they're doing something which is just a simple way out, it's just a simple way to look good without grappling with the real life consequences," she said
"It just sets a really detrimental precedent."
Ms Cooney said Australia was not immune to the trap, noting its ban on imported lion and rhino trophies also eroded conservation efforts.
Although trophy hunting is deemed unethical by many Westerners, she said it had led to some of the greatest conservation success cases of recent decades.
"While a lot of people understandably find it a really distasteful concept, by and large, it's actually working really well, at a kind of macro level," Ms Cooney said.
"There are certainly some serious problems in some places.
"But trophy hunting is not a major threat to any species on the globe at the moment.
"And in many cases it's actually countering what are the major threats, which are habitat loss and uncontrolled overexploitation.
"And it gives a return from wildlife and some wildlife land and so, where it's well managed, it provides a strong incentive for people to be willing to conserve that wildlife, to have dangerous wildlife live alongside them."
Ms Cooney described the Territory's crocodile management program as "a world-leading example, definitely".
Along with the fact that crocodile populations had recovered from near-extinction to carrying capacity, she said it had some of the best data of any program because it had been running for so long.
"That's as successful as you can be, if you get a species at carrying capacity," she said.
"The Northern Territory example is part of the reason that we're seeing these examples in all these other places, like Kenya and Peru and Mexico."
Irwin family against crocodile harvesting
Yet it is an example the Territory's closest croc-bearing neighbour took 34 years to emulate, to the chagrin of the nation's most famous wildlife advocates.
Just last year Queensland made crocodile egg harvesting legal, setting the limit at 5,000 eggs annually.
The Irwin family have since stood in firm opposition to the practice, disputing both the science and ethics that underpin it.
"This legislation is going to be catastrophic for crocodiles," Terri Irwin told the media last week.
"And against all the advice from the most comprehensive science conducted today on crocodiles and their behaviour.
"Removing 5,000 eggs from the wild this year will be a huge detriment to the apex predators that need our protection.
"And on the world stage it's incredibly disappointing and embarrassing."
Dr Webb and Ms Cooney did not agree.
"I think the Irwins are simply misinformed and misguided on this," she said.
"It doesn't surprise me because the Irwin approach its all about individual animals.
"It's not looking at the broader dynamic about how you get long-term sustainable species conservation. And how you get local people happy to have those species in the landscape."
The Irwins have been contacted for comment, through Australia Zoo.
Topics: conservation, environment, animals, human-interest, biology, pest-management, environmental-management, science-and-research-management, crocodile, trade, nt, australia, darwin-0800
First posted