Indigenous knowledge helps reveal the ties between reefs and mangroves

A decade-long collaboration between Australian scientists and Bardi Jawi rangers in northwestern Australia found that 10 culturally important fish species migrate between reef and mangrove ecosystems throughout their lives, not just during nursery stages, validating traditional ecological knowledge that guided the design of a 95,000-hectare Indigenous Protected Area and a 204,000-hectare Marine Park.

The findings confirmed what Bardi Jawi rangers already knew from millennia of traditional practice; rangers gained new understanding of climate vulnerability for specific species.