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Where the forest meets the sea: Walking the mangroves of Queensland
Summary
A mangrove walk with the Kuku Yalanji people of tropical Queensland brings alive the connected ecology of the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef
“Tastes good, doesn’t it? Like lime," says Juan. Well, I agree about the taste, but I’m still recovering from the shock of having bitten off an ant’s head. “Try some more," he says. So, I dip my hand into a group of large green weaver ants and they swarm all over. I panic, dust them off. There’s one that’s clinging on, biting me. “It bites you, you bite it," says Juan, in all seriousness. So, I do, pop it whole into my mouth and crunch. A sharp, acidic citrusy liquid goes down my throat. Live and learn.
The wet tropics of north-east Queensland, Australia, are known for a bunch of things: the oldest rainforest in the world, the largest coral reefs in world, the world’s biggest saltwater crocodiles. I didn’t know much about the practice of eating weaver ants though. But then again, until I got there, I didn’t know how the Daintree rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef were linked by a crucial and rich wetlands system, and the role it played in the customs, medical lore and cuisine of the local Kuku Yalanji people.
For remedying my ignorance, I had Juan Walker to thank. Juan, who is a Kuku Yalanji man, runs the excellent Walkabout Cultural Adventures from the town of Mossman, next to the Mossman River that flows out from the ancient Daintree to the Pacific Ocean. I was on a half-day trip with Juan and his crew as he took a group of us on a trip from the forest to the sea, telling Kuku Yalanji stories about the region, and showing how his people lived in consonance with the natural systems by considering themselves a part of the continuum.
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The fact that the Daintree is the oldest rainforest on the planet isn’t a far-fetched claim. The forest, all of 1200 sq. km as it tumbles down from the Great Peaks National Park to the Pacific coast, is estimated to be at least 135 million years old, making it much older than the Amazon rainforest. Although what remains now is just a shadow of the vast forests that spanned this part of Australia, the Daintree is still highly biodiverse, containing some 3,000 different plant species, as well as the overwhelming amount of the continent’s animal life and biomass. The Kuku Yalanji bama (people) of the area too have been around for a really long time, with local tradition dating it to 50,000 years, almost as old as the earliest human occupation of Australia. These days there’s about 300 Kuku Yalanji people living in the area.
“We are part of this bubu (country), we are not the rulers, we are a part of it," says Juan. And the land provides them with all the resources they could need, and traditional sea and land management practices forms an important part of their cultural heritage. After centuries of colonial depredations, in 2021, Juan’s people, the eastern Kuku Yalanji won back the formal ownership of 1,602 sq. km of the region, stretching from the Mossman to Cooktown further north, including all of the Daintree National Park.
To give us a sense of this intimate relationship with the land, Juan takes us to the nearby Cooya Beach (“Gooyu-gooyu" in Kuku Yalanji, which, Juan says, means “lots of fish"), a mangrove area overlooking the tidal flats where the Mossman river flows into the Pacific.
“We didn’t use to have flu before the Europeans came, but once we got the flu, we would use the green ants for cure," he says, while urging us to eat more of the critters. The ants are disturbed, but the carry on laying their larvae, using a kind of resin they secrete to tie up leaves of the ant tree, the Mymecodia becarii, to make a nest. “Basically, it's ascorbic acid, that’s what gives it that flavour. Vitamin C. When you’re ill, crush the nest up in water, make a drink out of it." Earlier, Juan says, the ants and their nests were used by women for better lactation. He then crushes a bunch of ants between his fingers and inhales deep. When I try it, it’s a potent hit, clearing my sinuses out immediately.
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We head out into the dense, twisting roots of the mangroves, walking over thick loamy mulch on the beach. The tidal flats are calm like a giant lake heading out into the fringing reefs and then the sea towards the barrier reefs. The mulch, Juan says are the detritus of the mangroves, washed in by the tide. He picks out a tiny white fruit from the mangrove tree and gives it to me. Squeeze it, he says, and when I do, a clear liquid comes out. “Mate, if you’re suffering from conjunctivitis, just squeeze some of this into your eyes."
Pointing to the mangroves he says that it may look a tangled mess, but it can provide a veritable feast for those with sharp eyes. He then picks out a large clam. I don’t even know how he knows it’s there, because I just see what seems like a submerged root in the mud. He digs around it and pulls it out by what turns out to be its lips. “Just roast it over a fire and scoop up the meat inside," he says. But that’s not the end of it. The Kuku Yalanji people use the shells as scraping tools, as spoons, and also make fishing hooks out of them.
Next, he points out a giant mud crab, as it sits submerged in the silt under a thick root system. They come in from the ocean to the mangroves for food, snapping open mussels, clams and snails with their claws to get to the meat. It’s a big one, and Juan says one like this would cost some 150 Aussie dollars at a restaurant. He then shows us a little periwinkle snail attached to a mangrove root. He picks it off and turns it around. “Nice clean shell," he says, “White and yellow inside. It’s the best one to eat, of all the different sea snails we get out here." Gun-gun is its Kuku Yalanji name.
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The mangrove we’re in is a red mangrove forest, and Juan says that these are quite unique because of their root systems. Big curving prop roots go down into the soft silt ground. They are studded with lumpy valves. Submerged in about waist-deep salt sea water when the tide comes in, the valves open up for the trees to take in salt water. The trees then filter out the nutrients and push out the salt to the leaf tips. “Look how those leaves are yellow? It’s because of the salt."
The trees then drop these salty yellow leaves to the forest floor, and as the shrimps, fishes, crabs eat the leaves for nutrients, their excrement, in turn, are absorbed by the trees through the salt water. “Everything here relies on each other. If one thing disappears, everything else is affected," he says.
Most mangrove forests in Australia are located in the tropical north of the continent, with the greatest concentration of species variety in tropical Queensland. According to the Australian government’s assessment, these mangroves sustain the life cycles of about 75% of the fish and prawns caught in Queensland, besides providing protection against storm surges. The mangroves here also interact with the neighbouring salt marshes to regulate the overall health of the larger environment stretching up to the rainforest further inland.
“When we get monsoonal floods," Juan says, “we can get up to 4m of rain through the wet season. All of that floodwater flows through the mangroves." Pointing to the huge, exposed roots, he says, “These catch all the sediments and silt coming down with the floodwaters, so that clean water runs out to the Great Barrier Reef, giving the reefs the nutrients they need." This process, he says, also helps cool down the Great Barrier Reef, preventing coral bleaching.
Up here in tropical Queensland, with its heavy rainfall, the mangrove trees are really tall, standing up to 30m high. These are closed mangrove forests, due to the tangled nature of the root system. And although widespread in Queensland, Australia has only about 980,000 hectares of mangrove forests, accounting for less than 1% of the country’s total forest cover. And yet, it is a vital resource for the Kuku Yalanji and other coastal Queensland indigenous peoples. “If you live near a mangrove, you will never starve," says Juan.
The mangroves are intimately connected to the tidal mudflats and lagoons nearby, so we head out to practice some spearfishing. First, we practice on a coconut on the beach, as Juan shows us the right way to launch the narrow, long spear. His throw pierces the coconut shell easily, ours are more miss than hit.
Mastering these spears is key, in order to never go hungry in these parts. The mudflats are full of crabs and fish, and along with a bucket-load of foraged molluscs and snails, to go with some home-baked sourdough bread, that’s all you need really.
The Kuku Yalanji consider themselves very fortunate to live in such a rich region, enjoying and protecting the bounties of two huge natural systems—the rainforest and the reef—and the mangroves that link them. I remember that earlier in the day, Juan had mentioned that his people call the rainforest “maja", meaning boss. “We don’t own it, it owns us." What do they call the mangroves then? Maja is the rainforest, and “jalaun" is the ocean. “So Majajalaunbu, forest in the ocean."
