Standing on the sandstone bluffs at the mouth of Sydney's Botany Bay, saltwater man and senior Gamay ranger Robert Cooley gazes out at the Pacific Ocean. 

He wonders if Aboriginal people 254 years ago watched from this spot as James Cook's Endeavour sailed past.

"You'd have to think so," he says.

It's an important reminder of his people's connection to this place, and the deep well of memory that they've passed down through the generations.

It's knowledge that Dr Cooley and the Gamay rangers are sharing with scientists from Sydney's Macquarie University as they work together on the first comprehensive survey of marine mammals in Botany Bay.

The site of first contact

The local Aboriginal people refer to Botany Bay as Gamay, and the first interaction between Europeans and Aboriginal people here was not positive.

In April 1770, Captain Cook led a landing party to shore in longboats where they were met by local Dharawal people, who threw spears.

They may have been trying to ward off what they thought were spirits or ghosts returning to the country.

The spears missed, but Cook responded by shooting and wounding one of the men.

It's not clear whether the man lived or died.

Captain Cook and his crew spent eight days on shore at Gamay, replenishing their supplies, exploring the area, and trying to trade with the locals.

The country they found themselves in was one of plenty.

Captain Cook settled on the English name Botany Bay due to the enormous quantity of new plants collected by Endeavour botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander.

The bay is walled in by soaring sandstone cliffs, home to caves with evidence of human habitation dating back thousands of years.

Large middens filled with shells and fishbones can still be found in the area, pointing to a strong reliance by local people on the bounty of the sea.

Captain Cook's crew reportedly ate "very well" during their stay.

"The country is very level and fertile … there is a variety of flowering shrubs … [and we] saw a great number of birds of a beautiful plumage; among which were two sorts of parroquets, and a beautiful loriquet: we shot a few of them, which we made into a pie, and they ate very well."

— Journal of Sydney Parkinson, April 1770

Our blue backyard

It's late winter when I meet up with Dr Cooley. The annual migration of whales along Australia's east coast is in full swing.

These days, the Gamay and its surrounds make up one of the most built up and industrialised parts of the country.

Two of Sydney Airport's runways jut out into the bay, built on massive fingers of reclaimed land.

There's also a huge container port, which is visited by 1,600 ships every year and deals with more than 2.5 million containers.

Dr Cooley grew up around here; he's watched the bay change and industrialise over the years.

"I could prawn along Foreshore Drive Beach. I used to dive for blue swimmer crabs before this [port extension] was built," he says.

But while the area has its challenges, long stretches of the original coastline remain intact, particularly at the mouth of the bay where the headlands are protected as national parks.

Dr Cooley says apart from species that rely on the now dwindling sea-grass habitat, you can still catch many of the fish that  have always been here.

And it's still home to an exciting number of marine mammals, including dolphins, seals, whales, and even the occasional dugong.

But how many there are, when they come, how they move through the bay, and what they do when they are there are unknown.

To answer some of those questions, the Gamay rangers are now working with scientists from Macquarie University.

A tricky past

A lot of Aboriginal people are mistrustful of Western scientists due to a long and difficult history.

A key sticking point is informed consent, something that in the past scientists haven't always prioritised.

For example, there's a library of 7,000 DNA samples from Aboriginal people scientists collected in the 60s and 70s, but it hasn't been used in decades and researchers are only now reaching out to family members to gather consent.

From geneticists gathering material without permission, to anthropologists taking and misappropriating stories and lore, the history of Aboriginal and scientific relations is a difficult one.

"I don't think it's always been a friendly relationship," Dr Cooley says.

The decision to engage the scientists wasn't an easy one for the Gamay rangers, but Dr Cooley says it was a necessary one.

"We've had to be a little bit brave and share some of our knowledge with scientists we trust. Share what knowledge is appropriate, because if we don't, then how do we repair things?"

Which is where marine scientist Vanessa Pirotta from Macquarie University comes in.

Dr Pirotta is keen to learn as much as she can about the marine mammals in Gamay.

All of that can help inform developers when they're considering construction projects, and even the route ships might take through the bay.

Dr Pirotta says working with Indigenous knowledge holders is key to the success of those surveys.

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"When we work with the Gamay rangers, not only do you have that local knowledge, you've got that historical, that cultural knowledge," she says.

"You've got knowledge through storytelling that has been passed through to them from generation to generation."

But beyond the immediate science goals of the project, Dr Pirotta is trying to build lasting relationships with the La Perouse Aboriginal community and perhaps clear some of the negativity that hangs over interactions between scientists and Indigenous people.

"For so many years, we've not ever even thought of the people who were here first — Australia's first scientists," she says.

"How ridiculous is that?"

Building trust

Bryce Liddell is a Bidjigal man from La Perouse in Sydney — he's another senior Gamay ranger working on the project.

Several weeks ago, when a humpback whale got tangled in ropes in Sydney Harbour, Mr Liddell was on the team that rescued it.

He's acting as a sort of a bridge between two cultures.

Mr Liddell is steeped in the knowledge his family and people have passed down through the generations.

But he's also just finished a masters in marine science at the University of New South Wales, and is hoping to go onto further studies next year.

Mr Liddell believes that Aboriginal traditional knowledge has a lot to offer Western science because of the depth of information they've gathered over thousands of years.

"We know a lot about how the water in our area is meant to move," he says.

"How the species are meant to move, when to go hunt for certain species, and how to care for country in a traditional sense."

But the ranger says there are limitations.

"The issues that we're seeing now are things that we don't have answers to in our cultural knowledge," he says.

Having these two cultures complement each other will be key to this project's success.

And if it's successful, everyone stands to gain a wealth of information about the marine environment in Australia's biggest city, which could help protect the creatures that call it home.

It could also be another model for future collaboration between scientists and traditional owners.

And Dr Cooley says that's heartening.

"It warms my heart that some of those scientists and research institutions we work with are not only our partners, but they're some of our great friends," he says.

"That's built on that foundation of trust and wanting the same thing, and that's to improve those oceans for the benefit of everybody, not just our Indigenous community."