Clayton Chainsaw is a Garngi ranger in West Arnhem Land. Last Sunday morning, off the remote northern coast of Croker Island, he was working with rangers and marine researchers, tagging turtles and other wildlife, when they spotted an illegal fishing vessel.
The Garngi rangers were annoyed. More and more foreign fishing boats have been active along the coast, which the rangers say poses a threat to sustainable marine ecosystems, border security, biosecurity and community safety.
They followed the boat as it tracked west, but on advice from Australian Border Force and the NT police, they didn’t approach the fishers.
The boat wasn’t just fishing. On board were four foreign nationals, who the rangers believe were later left by the fishing crew on a remote beach with no food or water.
The Northern Territory has been in the grip of a severe heatwave, with high humidity and temperatures over 35C . So Clayton was alarmed when he got a call later that day from his brother-in-law who was camped at an outstation on the island, saying a foreigner had appeared seeking help. The two locals agreed to take the man to a rangers’ camp and decide what to do next.
On the way they found another man, disoriented, dehydrated and hungry, lying in the middle of the road.
“We felt very sorry for them,” Clayton told Guardian Australia.
“They were very tired, they just wanted to lie on the ground. We gave them a swag and a tent and a feed. We told them, ‘We are good people’. We said, ‘Just relax, you are safe with us.’”
Garngi ranger coordinator Bryan MacDonald says NT police and border force advised them to keep the men under surveillance, but it was clear to him they were “no trouble at all”. “There were going to be no Rambo measures needed.”
The Garngi rangers provided first aid, food and water. In the morning, waiting for authorities to arrive, the men began using translation apps on their mobile phones to communicate. Garngi rangers said the men claimed to have each paid US$6,000 to be brought to Australia.
The foreign nationals revealed there were two more people in the area. The rangers found both men – who by then had been without food and water for 24 hours – and took them by boat back to the camp.
They were lucky to be alive, Clayton says. “I nearly cried with them sitting there in the boat, I’d never seen people like that, asylum seekers.”
Clayton says he talked to the men for hours, until the NT police arrived to take them away.
“We learned the word for family, so we kept saying to them, ‘Hi family!’,” he recalls. “We sat there and had a good yarn. One of them sat and talked to my mum for a long time.”
Clayton says one of the men gave him a bracelet that had belonged to his wife, who had died.
“I was really saddened. I said, ‘Keep it for your memory,’ but he wanted me to have it. Then the police arrived.”
Clayton is worried for the four men and would like to know where they are.
An Australian Border Force spokesperson told the Guardian that ABF “does not confirm or comment on operational matters”.
A spokesperson for the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said“no people smuggling ventures have been successful under our government. People who come to Australia by boat have zero chance of success.”
The shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, says that “if confirmed, this will be the eighth boat that has breached our borders and reached the Australian territory since Labor was elected, and the 23rd attempted people smuggling venture to attempt the journey to Australia”.
Aboriginal rangers regularly patrol and monitor Aboriginal-owned coastlines across the NT and support the ABF and Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA), as well as the defence force.
Garngi community rangers, who have been operating since 1998, protect threatened species, control feral animals and invasive species, manage fire risk, remove marine debris and look after country. They are not equipped to rescue people and have no authority to control illegal fishing in Australian waters, MacDonald says.
On 11 October, Garngi rangers working on fire management projects discovered four vessels hidden in the remote mangrove creeks on the north-western edge of Croker Island.
The sighting followed reports from the traditional owners of the Cobourg Peninsula region that several vessels had been located, with accounts of as many as 30 people from these boats spotted walking along the coastline.
In early November, Garngi rangers say they found another boat on Croker Island’s north-western side and the carcasses of two sharks with fins and tails removed.
The chair of the Northern Land Council, Matthew Ryan, wants the federal government to take much tougher action to patrol the coast.
Ryan was furious this week at the government’s handling of the situation, saying that in his view, ABF is “asleep at the wheel”.
“These illegal fishermen have been stealing from our Sea Country and encroaching on our land for a long time now and they have recently stepped up the pace. Now we know for sure that they’re people smuggling as well, which takes it to a whole new level,” Ryan told Guardian Australia.
“Eventually, someone will die. It is dangerous because it’s leading up to the wet season, plus [there’s] the humidity.
“We’ve been telling Border Force … They’ve been reluctant to assist our local ranger groups and the community. It’s up to the commissioner to get off his high horse and do something, and the minister for home affairs, Tony Burke, I believe he should be demanding why all of us aren’t there protecting our borders,” Ryan says.
Back on Croker island, Clayton and the ranger group want to keep fighting to help the four men they rescued.
“I just wanted them to feel comfortable here on the island, and I wanted to talk to one of the police or someone else, like Border Force, just for them to stay here [so we could] take care of them. I can adopt people and keep them here,” Clayton says.
“It’s the fishermen who are the problem that we try to stop. I just can’t believe the fishermen kicked these people off the boat, just slapped them down on the island with no water or anything.”
