News / Events

Woppaburra people have been formally recognised as native title holders. Their native title determination area covers 567 square kilometres and includes Woppa (Great Keppel) and Konomie (North Keppel).

Traditional owners in South Australia's north have complained about work starting on two major projects despite heritage assessments showing the areas are scattered with artefacts.

The projects — drilling by a mining exploration company and a high-tech battery — are on the traditional lands of the Kuyani and Adnyamathanha people in the western Flinders Ranges.

The descendants of people displaced by nuclear testing at Maralinga bought shares in a company planning to build a uranium mine on their country, in order to lodge an in-person objection to the project. The proposed Mulga Rock uranium mine, about 240km west of Kalgoorlie, is in an area of land subject to a native title claim by the Upurli Upurli Nguratja people.

The Federal Government and the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance have joined forces in a historic partnership to ensure strengthened safeguards for First Nations cultural heritage.

Announced on Monday, the partnership was forged by the Alliance, with Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt and Environment Minister Sussan Ley and seeks to place First Nations People at the centre of decision-making.

The successful claim by Kuuku Ya'u and Uutaanlanu Traditional Owners is one of the largest in the country's history and ends decades of waiting. Almost 2,200 square kilometers of land has been handed back to Kuuku Ya'u and Uutaalnganu people under the first successful Native Title determination in the Cape York United #1 claim.

Four years of native title negotiations in south west Queensland have come to an end in a "hugely emotional" ceremony, returning nearly 13,000 hectares of land to traditional owners.

The Federal Court of Australia has granted the Yuwaalaraay/Euahlayi people native title rights to the land in the Balonne Shire, including the townships of Dirranbandi and Hebel.

The 46,000-year-old sacred rock shelters were legally destroyed last year. The cultural heritage bill, designed to prevent another such incident, was introduced into the WA parliament last week and it could be law by Christmas, but investors and many traditional owners in the state are not happy with it.

Rio Tinto’s destruction of Juukan Gorge sent shock waves around the world. In the rush to develop clean energy projects we must not repeat similar mistakes, where the expansion of renewables becomes another action done “to” First Nations people rather than “with” them.

The clean energy boom, while necessary, is not cost free. It would be a terrible irony if the renewables industry was granted the same licence to wreck our land and culture as mining.

Residents of the Iltjiltajarri Aboriginal community in central Australia used to have to truck in diesel along hundreds of kilometres of corrugated, dusty roads.

Diesel powered the pumps that drew life-giving water out of the ground, but was so prohibitively expensive that 30 years ago the community pooled their funds and bought an early-model solar system and battery.