Bermudian anthropologist Dr. Philippe Max Rouja returned recently from a month-long research trip among the Bardi aborigines of Northwestern Australia.

The Bardi aboriginal people live in a remote corner of north western Australia and still maintain many of their original fishing traditions, even after two centuries of colonisation.

Dr. Rouja is directing a research project funded by the Leperq Foundation among the Bardi, investigating the impact of seasonal marine resource use on community health.

The project has direct implications for Bermuda -- in understanding both the importance of the oceans to human health and in looking to preserve our marine resources in the most sustainable way.

The project, `Saltwater People', investigates the health impact of the Bardi's seasonal fisheries management strategy.

This is an area of expertise for Dr. Rouja, who wrote part of his PhD thesis on the way the Bardi people focus on fishing for specific fish at specific times of year, depending on the level of fats they contain.

Dr. Rouja has spent many months living with the Bardi over the past few years and has worked with that community in exploring their fishing patterns and traditions.

His research has found that for many fish the Bardi hunt, the fish are most fat when they are not spawning. The Bardi traditionally do not hunt when the fish are spawning.

This means that the fish are left to spawn and the seasonal fishing patterns followed by Bardi fishermen have a direct conservation benefit.

Dr. Rouja is coordinating his studies with the Bermuda Biological Station for Research (BBSR), where he is a research fellow.

The BBSR programme has been extensively focused on health and the oceans in the last year and has sponsored and supported a number of projects which investigate the value of the oceans and marine resources to human health.

Dr. Rouja also is working very closely with Dr. Eric Dewailly, a world-renowned specialist on the subject of marine fats and public health, and director of the health division of the international centre for ocean and human health at the BBSR. Dr. Dewailly is well known for his work among the Inuit people in Canada.

Dr. Rouja's current research project sets out to expand the understanding of the relationship between fatness and the spawning of fish in the Bardi fishery, by measuring fat levels, testing the properties of these fats and looking at potential health impacts deriving from their consumption.

Fish fats, and specifically omega three fatty acids, are known to have specific health benefits in certain human populations (statements that have recently won approval by the US FDA in relation to Coronary Heart Disease).

Omega three fatty acids appear to benefit and reduce heart disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, and even depression.

These fats are generally held to be abundant in cold-water fish -- with scant research being conducted in warmer water fisheries.

Dr. Rouja's research among the Bardi and their focus on so called seasonally fat fish in a tropical fishery challenges this assumption, as it does appear that fish fat is also abundant in the fish found in the warm waters of Northern Australia.

Initial test results bear out the wisdom of Bardi fishermen, with specific fish showing relatively massive seasonal accumulations of fats of the same type found in cold water fish.

The potential impact of this fat consumption at a community level is currently under research.

Like indigenous people throughout the world, the Bardi face a general health crisis caused by a wide range of debilitating personal and community challenges.

The `westernisation' of their diet, coupled with other problems contributes greatly to their poor health status.

The need for a more traditional fish based diet is underlined by Dr. Rouja's work.

Dr Rouja said: "I am finding my work with the Bardi people fascinating.

"It is becoming more and more apparent that reinforcing and supporting the benefits of traditional diets is of great importance at this juncture to the Bardi community and to other populations worldwide.

"Traditional culture is inseparable from traditional food.

"Supporting traditional diets means supporting culture, which is an incredibly important focus for all indigenous people going into the next decade.'' Aboriginal fishery holds lessons for Bermuda "Research to date suggests that their traditional diet in terms of its fat intake, closely mirrors that of a traditional Mediterranean diet, widely viewed as the healthiest in the world.

"Therefore protecting traditional diet also protects the health of these communities.

"In a culture where elders are invaluable repositories of knowledge, health and longevity are of paramount importance to cultural preservation.'' Dr. Rouja added: "Due to our initial test results indicating that the fats in the traditional Bardi diet are desirable, the project is coordinating with Aboriginal clinics in coastal communities to encourage traditional diets specifically for older people who can no longer hunt and fish themselves.

"This will hopefully further encourage younger people to go out and procure traditional foods and give them to older people, a practice that continues in very traditional families but is quickly being eroded at a community level.'' Dr. Rouja is proving that we could all do well to learn from the Bardi's traditional approach to fishing, in preserving both our health and our fishing resources.

"Obviously we are very excited by our preliminary findings but no more than are the communities themselves who have known of these benefits for millennia,'' he said.

"The Bardi are essentially teaching us about the presence and potential health and ecological benefits of consuming these fats in warmer water fish.'' Dr. Rouja's research into traditional diet led him to be invited as a panelist at the World Council of Whalers symposium in Nelson, New Zealand from November 16 to 19 with two Bardi elders from the One Arm Point Community, Tom Wiggan and Dennis Davey.

One of the Council of Whalers' mandates is to support the rights of indigenous people to carry out subsistence hunting of whales and other marine mammals in recognition of the integral contribution it makes to traditional culture and diet.

This aspect of the council's mandate was of great interest to the Bardi as their hunt of dugong, a very large marine mammal, is still an important contributor to their diet.

Dr. Rouja said: "The conference was a great gathering of people who are interested in this area from all over the world.

"Some aspects of the Council of Whalers objectives are very progressive, while other aspects are more contentious.

"Their involvement with indigenous people was at times challenged as a `front' by which the Japanese justify their continued whaling practices.'' Many of the indigenous participants at the conference, including the Bardi delegation, were concerned about this aspect of the council's mandate, but welcomed the overall support given to their traditional way of life.

Dr. Rouja, speaking as a panelist, commented: "I agree with environmentalists that fear a return to commercial whaling.

"Commercial interests have a history of fisheries over-exploitation, therefore it is difficult to envisage a return to worldwide commercial whaling.

"However, protecting biodiversity must also take into account the importance of cultural diversity.

"The protection of species from commercial interests that have a history of over-exploitation should not impinge on the rights of those cultures who have been harvesting these resources sustainably for countless generations.'' "This is the very knowledge that is needed to develop new commercial resource use strategies that are better at protecting ecological health and consequently biodiversity.'' Dr. Rouja's study will expand to look at the Bermuda fishing resources and practices in the upcoming months, analysing the `fatness' of Bermuda's fish.

Tradition technique: A Bardi fisherman spearfishes off the northwestern Australian coast.

Salt water people: A Bardi elder (top)sits atop a raft wish his catch of the day. (Below) Dr. Rouja meets with a Bardi elder.

Sustainable harvest: A Bardi fisherman returns with his catch of the day.