Buccaneer islands from the air in the wet

The Buccaneer Archipelago is a group of islands off the coast of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

near the town of

Derby Derby ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area on the River Derwent, Derbyshire, River Derwent in Derbyshire, England. Derbyshire is named after Derby, which was its original co ...

in the

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia Queensland * Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas South Australia * County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia Ta ...

region. The closest inhabited place is Bardi located about from the western end of the island group. , a new

marine park A marine park is a designated park consisting of an area of sea (or lake) set aside to achieve ecological sustainability, promote marine awareness and understanding, enable marine recreational activities, and provide benefits for Indigenous peo ...

is planned to cover some of the islands of the Buccaneer group, to be known as the Mayala Marine Park. This will be separate from the Maiyalam Marine Park, which will cover other islands of the group, and will become part of four marine parks making up the Lalang-gaddam Marine Park.

History

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia (co ...

have lived in the Kimberley region for thousands of years. The

traditional owners Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rig ...

of the area are the

Mayala The Yawijibaya, also written Jaudjibaia, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. Along with the Unggarranggu people, they are the traditional owners of the Buccaneer Archipelago, off Derby, tog ...

group, made up of the Yawijibaya and Unggarranggu peoples, although the

Bardi people The Bardi people, also spelt Baada or Baardi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people, living north of Broome, Western Australia, Broome and inhabiting parts of the Dampier Peninsula in the Kimberley (Western Australia), Kimber ...

have traditional rights of fishing and trochus. The archipelago was named after the English

buccaneer Buccaneers were a kind of privateer or free sailors, and pirates particular to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from the Restoration in 1660 u ...

and

privateer A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...

William Dampier William Dampier (baptised 5 September 1651; died March 1715) was an English explorer, pirate, privateer, navigator, and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavig ...

, who charted the area in 1688, by

Philip Parker King Phillip Parker King (13 December 1791 – 26 February 1856) was an early explorer of the Australian and Patagonian coasts. Early life and education King was born on Norfolk Island, to Philip Gidley King and Anna Josepha King ''née'' Coom ...

in August 1821. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00028.html#chapter02

Description

The

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

, covering over , is located at the head of

King Sound King Sound is a large gulf in northern Western Australia. It expands from the mouth of the Fitzroy River (Western Australia), Fitzroy River, one of Australia's largest watercourses, and opens to the Indian Ocean. It is about long, and averag ...

and is composed of about 800 islands found between

and Collier Bay near Yampi Sound. The area experiences a huge tidal range, of over , which once wreaked havoc on the

pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle (mollusc), mantle) of a living Exoskeleton, shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pear ...

ing fleet that operated in the area last century. The islands' rocks are over 2

billion Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: * 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the most common sense of the word in all varieties of ...

years old, as is the surrounding coastline. The islands themselves were formed more recently as a result of rising

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

s, creating a drowned coastline. The rocks are ancient

Precambrian The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of t ...

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

s. The islands are generally rocky, many with high cliffs. The islands are in almost pristine condition as a result of their isolation and difficulty of access. Some are sparsely vegetated with patches of rain-forest, and areas fringed with

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen a ...

s where silt has built up.

New marine park

In December 2020 indicative joint management plans for the creation of a new marine park, co-designed by

and the

state government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonom ...

Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) is the Government of Western Australia, Western Australian government department responsible for managing lands and waters described in the ''Conservation and Land Management A ...

, along with three

Indigenous land use agreement Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title right ...

s (ILUAs), were published. The proposal It is part of the "Plan for Our Parks" government initiative, which also sees the expansion and consolidation of the Lalang-garram / Camden Sound, Lalang-garram / Horizontal Falls and North Lalang-garram marine parks. The new park is to be

gazetted A gazette is an official journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper. In English and French speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name ''Gazette'' since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspapers ...

as the Mayala Marine Park. (This is separate from the Maiyalam Marine Park, which will cover other islands of the group, and will become part of four marine parks making up the Lalang-gaddam Marine Park.)

Islands

The

Landgate The Western Australian Land Information Authority operates under the business name of Landgate. Formerly known as the Department of Land Information (DLI), the Department of Land Administration (DOLA) and the Department of Lands and Surveys ( ...

survey of the archipelago excludes "Islands south of Bedford Islands and Hidden Island, including High, Sunday, Mermaid, Long and nearby islands...". It groups the islands by location, as follows: *North-east group: Macleay Island(s), Conway Island, King Island, and Crabbe Island. *South-east group: McIntyre, Bathurst, Irvine, Flora, Kathleen, Wangania, Tanner, Cockatoo, and Usborne Islands; also, Black Rock. *West group: Caffarelli Island, Cleft Island, Fraser, Admiral, Bruen and King Hall, Longitude, Powerful Island and Islands, and numerous others. * South-west group: Bedford, Godsmark, Asshlyn, Goat, and Pope Islands. The ''

Encyclopaedia Britannica An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

'' also refers to "four clusters", and cites Macleay Island as the largest in the archipelago. The following table includes some of the islands mentioned above.

History

Description

New marine park

Islands

See also

References

Further reading