THE PEARL-SHELLERS OF TORRES STRAIT, Resource Use, Development and Decline, 1860s-1960s

GANTER, Regina

ISBN 10: 0522845479 / ISBN 13: 9780522845471

Published by Melbourne University Press. Melbourne. ., 1994

About this Item

1st Ed. XVIII, 300 PP with 3 tables, 3 fig. & 5 maps, plus 12 pages with 21 b/w photos. Pictorial soft cover. Fine. Scarce. 21.5 x 14. The progress of pearl-shelling from its heyday, through several crises due to over-fishing to its present cautious management.

Seller Inventory # 21060

Bibliographic Details

• Title: THE PEARL-SHELLERS OF TORRES STRAIT, Resource Use, Development and Decline, 1860s-1960s
• Publisher: Melbourne University Press. Melbourne. .
• Publication Date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0522845479
• ISBN 13: 9780522845471
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis

In an ethnically stratified work force, Japanese, South Sea Islander, Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal divers brought up from the sea floor the shell that produced mother-of-pearl, and sometimes pearls. Many men died at this dangerous work.

This was an industry that could have given the indigenous peoples of Torres Strait an occupation that preserved their identity and independence. Yet in spite of a co-operative lugger scheme that operated fairly successfully in the early twentieth century, a real independence was not achieved. And a resource that could have been conserved by small-scale indigenous harvesting was depleted time and again by the colonial practices of resource-raiding and mass extraction.

Regina Ganter charts the progress of pearl-shelling from its heyday through its several crises resulting from overfishing to its present cautious management. The book is greatly enhanced by the oral testimony of divers and boat-owners.

About the Author

Dr Regina Ganter has done extensive fieldwork as a consultant for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. A lecturer at Griffith University, she presently holds a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Australian National University to explore the dynamics of interaction between Asians, Aborigines and Europeans at the Australian frontier.