Arrive at a fancy function in Sydney, and a tray of freshly shucked, plump oysters will travel past your nose in no time. These days it’s delicious fare often washed down with a glass of bubbly, but Australian history of oysters stretches back much further than you may realise.
Sydney rock oysters (Saccostrea glomerata) are native to the eastern coast of our continent, and along with their cousins, the flat Angasi oysters (Ostrea angasi), were a substantial resource for Indigenous peoples in coastal regions. New South Wales coast is dotted with ancient sites that attest to thousands of years of shellfish collection.
These sites are called – places where Indigenous communities left the remains of their meals, depositing things like oyster shells. Sometimes these remains would pile up for generations, creating a midden several metres deep. Coming across a fresh midden pile would indicate to others which resources had been recently harvested for food, so that new arrivals could choose something else to eat and not deplete the resource too much.
“Wild-caught oysters were hugely important for Aboriginal people,” says who researches the social aspects of fisheries at the University of Technology Sydney. She explains that oysters were collected not just for food, but their shells were also useful in tool-making.
Barclay is the lead author of a on the social and economic value of aquaculture in coastal NSW, commissioned by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation. Amongst observations about the value of aquaculture to local people, the report also stresses the role of Indigenous heritage.
Oysters were an important food source for Indigenous coastal communities. (State Library of NSW) Source: State Library of NSW
After all, Australian aquaculture dates back thousands of years. Evidence of shows the Gunditjmara people in the region lived in stone huts and farmed eels some 8,000 years before European arrival. It’s the oldest land-based aquaculture endeavour found on our continent.
Oyster farming has a pedigree as well. It started back in the 1870s with oyster cultivation in the Georges River south-west of Sydney. For more than a century it’s remained ; it produces over 106 million oysters each year, their total value exceeding $35 million.
Indigenous coastal communities played a vital role in the establishment of this lucrative seafood business.
Early days: this 1883 engraving of oyster harvesting in New South Wales showed "1. Boats going to the fishing ground; 2. Diver attacked by an octopus; 3. Commonest mode of procuring oysters; 4. Divers; 5. Using the scoop-net." (State Library of Victoria) Source: State Library of Victoria / Alfred Martin Ebsworth
“Aboriginal people were involved from the earliest days in the culture of growing oysters, helping to identify the areas as well as working on building oyster farms,” explains Barclay.
“The area around Port Stephens became the epicentre of oyster production in the 20th century, and there were lots of Aboriginal people involved, mainly as employees, at the oyster farms [in the area].”
In fact, that legacy is continued by AJN Oysters, an enterprise run by Nicola and Ross Manton. They operate at the , which is managed by Twofold Aboriginal Corporation on the picturesque shores of Pambula Lake in south-eastern NSW.
“After working for other people in the white community, we thought we could give it a go ourselves – we had the knowledge on how to do things, the experience,” says Ross Manton, a Worimi man whose farm, albeit relatively small, has been thriving for the past decade.
However, the Manton family business is a rare example of an actual Indigenous-owned oyster farm. According to Kate Barclay, regulations around establishing an aquaculture business are complex, and farms are also technically complicated to set up and run, which can make it harder for disadvantaged communities to get started. The Mantons didn’t seek government support when starting out.
“[We wanted] to give an Aboriginal example: that an uneducated person can come into business and qualify for themselves,” says Manton.
In the Northern Territory, to actively involve remote Indigenous communities in aquaculture, including the farming of tropical oysters. Meanwhile the for the NSW oyster industry has recommendations for ‘responsible oyster farmers’, calling for preservation of Indigenous heritage values and employment of Indigenous people.
However, according to Kate Barclay, there are no clear statistics on Indigenous employment in the aquaculture industry. Hence, in her team’s report, gathering data on Aboriginal involvement in NSW aquaculture is amongst priority recommendations.
“It would be great to have aquaculture businesses in these coastal areas, people can work on the Country, it's nutritious food provision, it's culturally important and would improve wellbeing,” says Barclay.
Ross Manton agrees that it would “be interesting” to find out more data about Indigenous employment in NSW aquaculture. He also emphasises the role businesses can play by investing back in the local community, which includes giving employment to Aboriginal people. To him, a vital part in helping disadvantaged communities are outreach programs to local schools.
“They have to have that chance,” says Manton. “I think some families – not all – are just not getting that education because they feel unworthy at school, they feel like second-class citizens and that's it.”
“That's what we're trying to do at the moment, build the kids up so they want to be skilled and properly educated."
Image of man harvesting oysters via . Oyster fishing engraving via.
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