Stop dugong hunting: Aboriginal leader

A leading indigenous figure has called on traditional owners to ban the controversial practice of dugong hunting.

North Queensland Land Council chair Terry O'Shane said that although traditional owners had the right to hunt the endangered species for traditional purposes, they had a responsibility to protect the environment.

"What I'm talking to the mobs about is developing a responsible response to those rights," he told AAP.

"We need to protect the ecosystem.

"Dugong is an endangered species and we have to recognise that too."

His comments come after reports poachers at Yarrabah in far north Queensland have been abusing native title laws to kill dugong and turtles before selling the meat on the black market for up to $50 a kilogram.

The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority are investigating the reports.

Yarrabah Mayor Percy Neal said that while he had no direct knowledge of the trade, anyone caught abusing native title rights should be punished.

"They should be prosecuted, we shouldn't be profiting from our native title rights," Mr Neal told AAP.

However, he said, there was little the community could do to stop the practice after the federal government cut funding for its ranger program earlier this year.

The council had employed 16 rangers under the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme before the government axed the program on July 1.

It says the community now has just one ranger to police 240,000 hectares of land and 29km of coastline.

"It's an impossible job," Mr Neal said.

A spokesman for federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the Yarrabah council had not applied for land or sea management funding in the wake of the demise of the CDEP scheme.

He said Innisfail-based Terrain Natural Resource Management had been appointed to handle the land management for Yarrabah but no applications for funding had been received in relation to sea management.