Flipping the tide: a First Nations vision for Indigenous leadership in sustainable ocean culture

This paper presents a blueprint for structural change across the marine research, policy, management, and development sectors. Through critical reflection on the current compass directions, we present an alternative vision with a backbone to incorporating all that our diverse marine sectors, roles and responsibilities can contribute towards a more equitable and sustainable ocean development future. Realising our rights and vision requires much more than a mere valuing and integration of knowledge systems. It demands the dismantling of the many barriers that have been keeping Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Indigenous science leadership sidelined from national and global agendas in marine science, policy and management. We propose to achieve this through the establishment of two new national bodies in Australia, a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Marine Science Institute (NATSIMSI) and a National Indigenous Environmental Research Network (NIERN). This paper is a welcome first for Indigenous leadership to contribute to the development of Australia’s National Marine Science Plan, and an important milestone on the journey to realise our vision. It concludes with six key recommendations that strive to place the leadership of Traditional Custodians at the helm of steering a new course.