How Australia Sustainably Manages the World’s Last Wild Commercial Fishery of Pearl Oysters

23/11/2018 0 Comments read Business and Trade, Environment & Development

Terry Hunter, a Bardi man, is a cultural tour guide on the Cygnet Bay Pearl farm. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY/BROOME/CYGNET BAY (Australia), 23.11.2018 (IPS): Australia’s remote north-western Kimberley coast, where the Great Sandy Desert meets the sapphire waters of the Indian Ocean, is home to the giant Pinctada maxima or silver-lipped pearl oyster shells that produce the finest and highly-prized Australian South Sea Pearls.

Australia is the only country in the world that uses wild oyster stocks. To ensure its sustainability, the pearling industry operates on a government-regulated quota system that sets a maximum number of wild stock pearl oysters that can be caught each year from the Eighty Mile Beach, south of Broome in the state of Western Australia. These wild pearl oyster beds represent the last wild commercial fishery for Pinctada maxima oysters in the world.

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Rich Asia Pacific nations rank poorly on development policies

21/09/2018 0 Comments read Business and Trade, Environment & Development

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 21.09.2018 (SciDev.Net): The richer Asia-Pacific countries and the US do poorly on the 2018 Commitment to Development Index (CDI), which ranks 27 wealthy countries according to how well their aid, trade, environment and migration policies support low and middle-income countries in poverty alleviation, good governance and security.

Published annually by the Center for Global Development (CGD), the index is based on benefits policies of some members of the OECD’s (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Development Assistance Committee provide to about five billion people living in poor countries.

New Zealand ranks 13th, the highest ranked Asia Pacific country, Australia 14th, the US 23rd, Japan 24th and South Korea comes last at 27th in the CDI released on 18 September by the CGD, a nonprofit think-tank with offices in London and Washington DC.

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The pearls of Cygnet Bay

20/04/2018 0 Comments read Environment & Development, Indigenous, Travel

By Neena Bhandari

Cygnet Bay (Western Australia), 20.04.2018 (liveMint): A four-seater Cessna lands on a pindan (red soil) airstrip near a narrow dirt road that leads to Cygnet Bay. It is tucked in at the tip of the Dampier Peninsula on Australia’s remote north-western Kimberley coast, where the Great Sandy Desert merges effortlessly with white beaches and the azure waters of the Indian Ocean.

It was here, in 1946, that wheat farmer Dean Brown entered the pearling industry, collecting the world’s largest pearl oysters, Pinctada maxima, for their mother-of-pearl shells. A decade later, his sons, Lyndon and then Bruce, joined him. They began experimenting with farming pearls and established the first all-Australian owned and operated cultured pearling company, Cygnet Bay Pearls.

The company is still leading the way in harvesting some of the largest and finest pearls under a third-generation Brown, James, and welcoming visitors to experience the making of the Australian South Sea Pearl.

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