Box 1: Implications for indigenous peoples—not all impacts can be adapted to

Dr Aunty Patsy Cameron is worried that sea country traditional knowledges of tebrakunna country, now known as Cape Portland, north-east Tasmania, are being washed away with every new and rising tide, estimating that the coastline has receded some 15 metres. The loss of living midden sites that are thousands of years old (Lourandos 1968) are “now ancient insights lost under the oceans” (Aunty Patsy Cameron pers. comm. 22/07/17) and has massive implications on the transmission of Indigenous knowledges (Mustonen and Mustonen 2011). For example, the remains of the yolla or muttonbird (short tailed shearwater), a coastal nesting bird, found in living middens are an aid in the passing on and teaching of tebrakunna deep histories and knowledges. Yet Aunty Patsy is worried if the yolla will continue to nest, be a food source for families and nurture our cultures as their habitat is reduced. This destruction of heritage is paired with the depletion of kelp and seaweed beds that are home to the maireener shell and shell necklaces, an iconic shell and ‘potent signifier’ (Norman 2013) of tebrakunna and other women and their caring for sea country. Where the maireener rainbow kelp shells are depleted in rapid numbers, women feel the cultural loss of governance and connections to sea country (see Lee 2017). While extant rights for Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples to gather and use marine resources under the Living Marine Resources Management Act 1995 creates the spaces, for example, of autonomy and adaptation for women of tebrakunna country to shift the shell types in necklace-making, there is a distinct lack of collaboration with scientists and others to record, implement and build on traditional knowledges in research (Huntington et al. 2017). Aunty Patsy laments “where is science to help look at our health and wellbeing of the precious resources of sea country?” and highlights the restriction of Indigenous agency to care for sea country without the combination of traditional knowledge and modern science.