It was dinner time for the Rangers, a group of mostly Indigenous (本地的)Australians who had spent a long day cleaning up the polluted beaches of the continent's northern coast. Soon they would be eating freshly caught seafood cooked under the stars on an open fire, as their ancestors did.
The Rangers are of more than 100 indigenous groups spread across Australia who have taken on the job of protecting the land of their forefathers. I Arnhem Land, they are the protectors of 3, 300 square miles of land and sea. They comb the beaches by hand, picking up as much rubbish as possible. The task is very difficult as each day it delivers waves of new rubbish.
For the rangers, cleaning the beaches is more than a vacation. For a people whose culture is strongly tied to the land, protecting the environment is equal to preserving their history.
However, colonization forcefully broke their connection to the land generations ago. Indigenous people were displaced and their cultural practices outlawed. Tens of thousands of years of traditional land management ended, and as a result many parts of the country now face serious disasters from invasive plant and animal species, bush fires and land mismanagement.
In recent years, the government has restored more than 20 percent of Australia's land to indigenous owners. Since 2007, the Indigenous Ranger Organizations have been at work protecting this land.
Luke, one of the few non-indigenous employees working with the Rangers, said the combination of old and new techniques and an appreciation of the culture of indigenous workers could have been critical to the programme's success.
"You are working with staff who see the world different to you, so there is a much higher focus on the cultural aspects of work and life," he said.
"Being a ranger is a source of confidence. You feel strong," said Terence, a senior ranger. "Here we still live on the land. The culture is still alive. "
