00:00On remote beaches in the Gulf of Carpentaria,
00:04this is the painstaking work of removing discarded fishing gear.
00:08Indigenous ranger groups have removed hundreds of these nets,
00:12and now the Federal Government is doubling down on the program.
00:16Up until now the focus has been on oceans around the Gulf of Carpentaria,
00:20but this will allow us to expand the reach of this program
00:24right across northern Australia into parts of Western Australia
00:28and also the Torres Strait as well.
00:30The ranger clean-up programs had been under a cloud when funding dried up last year,
00:35now boosted to the tune of $20 million over four years,
00:39while a further $4.5 million will go towards trying to stop the nets at their source
00:44outside Australian waters.
00:46What we'll be doing also is funding some work with countries like Indonesia,
00:50Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea to work with fishermen and other people
00:54in local communities there to reduce the number of ghost nets and marine debris
00:59that we see ultimately flowing into Australian waters.
01:03Conservation groups want more options for Indonesian fishermen to dispose of their nets.
01:09Collection bins, processes for fishers to be able to dispose of end-of-life fishing gear,
01:16where there are incentives for the industry to participate as well as the other side of it,
01:22so connecting those disposal sites with people that want to buy those nets
01:28and there's huge demand for the materials.
01:31A welcome reinvestment as the struggle to turn the tide on ghost nets continues.
01:37yes, in person and now I use all theanteraries.
