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Torres
Strait
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The
Torres Strait - Cape York Peninsula is at the top; several of the
Torres Strait Islands can be seen strung out towards Papua New Guinea
The
Torres Strait - Cape York Peninsula is at the top; several of the
Torres Strait Islands can be seen strung out towards Papua New Guinea
The
Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the
Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately 150 km wide at its
narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost
continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland. To the
north is the Western Province of the independent state of Papua New
Guinea.
Geography
The
strait links the Coral Sea to the east with the Arafura Sea in the
west. It is very shallow, and the maze of reefs and islands can make it
hazardous to navigate.
Several
clusters of islands lie in the Strait, collectively called the Torres
Strait Islands. There are at least 274 of these islands, of which 17
have present-day permanent settlements.
These islands have a variety of
topographies, ecosystems and formation history. Several of those
closest to the New Guinea coastline are low-lying, formed by alluvial
sedimentary deposits borne by the outflow of the local rivers into the
sea. Many of the western islands are hilly and steep, formed mainly of
granite, and are peaks of the northernmost extension of the Great
Dividing Range now turned into islands when sea levels rose at the end
of the last ice age. The central islands are predominantly coral
cays, and those of the east are of volcanic origins.
The
islands' indigenous inhabitants are the Torres Strait Islanders,
Melanesian peoples related to the Papuans of adjoining New Guinea. The
various Torres Strait Islander communities have a distinct culture and
long-standing history with the islands and nearby coastlines. Their
maritime-based trade and interactions with the Papuans to the north and
the Australian Aboriginal communities have maintained a steady cultural
diffusion between the three societal groups, dating back thousands of
years at least.
Several
languages are spoken on the Torres Strait Islands, one of them being
Torres Strait Creole. In the 2001 Australian national census, the
population of the islands was recorded as 8,089.
History
The
first recorded European navigation of the strait was by Luis Vaez de
Torres, a Portuguese seaman who was second-in-command on the expedition
of Pedro Fernandes de Queirós who sailed from Peru to the South
Pacific in 1605. After Queiros's ship returned to Mexico, Torres
resumed the intended voyage to Manila via the Moluccas. He sailed along
the south coast of New Guinea, and may also have sighted the
northernmost extremity of Australia, however no specific record exists
which indicates that he did so.
In
1769 the Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple found Torres's report
of this voyage in Manila, and it was he who named the strait after
Torres.
In
1770 when James Cook annexed the whole of eastern Australia to the
British Crown, and indeed Cook sailed through the strait after sailing
up the Australian coast. The London Missionary Society arrived on Erub
(Darnley Island) in 1871. The Torres Strait Islands were annexed in
1879 by Queensland. They thus later became part of the British colony
of Queensland, although some of them lie just off the coast of New
Guinea.
In
1888-1889 the Torres Strait Islands were visited by the Cambridge
Anthropological Expedition resulting in a drastic depletion of their
cultural artifacts.
In
1904, the Torres Strait Islanders become subject to the Aboriginal
Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act. 1897 (QLD)
The
proximity to Papua New Guinea became an issue when it was moving
towards independence from Australia, which it gained in 1975. The
Torres Strait Islanders insisted that they were Australians, but the
Papua New Guinea government objected to complete Australian control
over the waters of the strait.
Eventually
an agreement was struck whereby the islands and their inhabitants
remain Australian, but the maritime frontier between Australia and
Papua New Guinea runs through the centre of the strait. In practice the
two countries co-operate closely in the management of the strait's
resources.
In
1982, Eddie Mabo and four other Torres Strait Islanders from Mer
(Murray Island) started legal proceedings to establish their
traditional land ownership. Because Mabo was the first-named plaintiff,
it became known as the Mabo Case. In 1992, after ten years of hearings
before the Queensland Supreme Court and the High Court of Australia,
the latter court found that Mer people had owned their land prior to
annexation by Queensland.
This
ruling overturned the century-old legal doctrine of terra nullius
("no-one's land"), which held that native title over Crown land in
Australia had been extinguished at the time of annexation. The ruling
was thus of far-reaching significance for the land claims of both
Torres Strait Islanders and Australian Aborigines.
See http://torresstrait.googlepages.com/home
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