Resources and publications

This report is the final report resulting from the federal parliamentary inquiry into the destruction of the Juukan Gorge Aboriginal heritage sites by Rio Tinto on 24 May 2020. This tragic event, and the national condemnation of the actions of Rio Tinto, has sparked action to address the legislative failings that allowed the destruction of the Juukan Gorge sites–and similar sites around the nation. The Juukan Gorge disaster is just one example of countless instances where cultural heritage has been the victim of the drive for development and commercial gain. The report makes a number of recommendations aimed at preventing future destruction.

This information sheet provides brief information about materials relating to native title compensation research.

While Indigenous people make up just five percent of the global population, the areas they manage contain approximately 80 percent of the Earth’s biodiversity. 

In this context, there is an undeniably central role for Indigenous people to play in conservation management, but conversely, a significant risk that indigenous rights will be negatively impacted or undermined by conservation agendas. 

This panel will explore Indigenous experiences with conservation management, highlighting the opportunities and challenges faced by native title holders within this context.

The Country Needs People campaign is fighting for the growth and security of opportunities for land and sea country management by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

This resource provides guidance and important questions for organisations to consider when establishing an archive of their own. It includes what an archive is, why archives are important, what can go in an archive, and outlines steps which could be taken to set up an archive.  Links to other resources and contacts are also contained in the booklet.

Australian Indigenous land and sea managers have repeatedly called for an independent national Indigenous land and sea managers network. Such a network would link top down and bottom up information exchanges, promoting shared understandings of issues and opportunities. The network would provide government with a vehicle to both inform and learn from local Indigenous groups, including community rangers, on local, national and international matters of environmental significance. It also provides an opportunity for Indigenous managers to come together to develop positions on policy that affects land and sea management such as Working on Country and Indigenous Protected Areas.

The network would not do business on behalf of people or replicate existing local or regional networks or institutions, but would provide strategic support, coordinate communication and identify opportunities for group to group skills and knowledge exchange. The network aims to provide professional support through a coordinated learning environment that facilitates the identification of effective resources, research, technologies and tools for use by Indigenous land and sea managers within Australia. This workshop provides an opportunity for Land & Sea Managers to come together to discuss the purpose and scope of a national network, including governance, networking and membership.

This report is based on the workshop, Implementing native title: Indigenous leadership in land and water livelihoods, held at the 2015 National Native Title Conference, 16-18 June, Port Douglas, Queensland. It details the ways several Indigenous communities from around Australia are implementing their rights and interests following the restitution of their land and sea territories.

This discussion paper presents the issues faced in Australia for the protection and management of Indigenous Knowledge. 

This publication reports on the proceedings of a two-day national workshop on the use and security of cultural and other information accumulated through the native title claims process, which was held at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in Canberra on 16–17 March 2015. It provides an overview of the most significant factors affecting the capacity of native title organisations to manage, secure and provide appropriate access to their holdings of native title information.

The Mornington Island Restorative Justice (MIRJ) Project has worked with families to establish a community-based alternative dispute resolution (mediation or peacemaking) service inclusive of Island culture and conforming to the requirements of the criminal justice system.

The North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance Ltd (NAILSMA) is a leader in finding practical solutions to support Indigenous people manage their land and sea resources into the future. NAILSMA, a not-for-profit company, has over a decade of experience in delivering complex and challenging programs across north Australia.

A key purpose of the plan was to better educate government and nongovernment agencies, researchers and the wider Australian public on Ngarrindjeri connection to Country and their associated rights and obligations to Yarluwar-Ruwe. 

This serious of essays draws on a diversity of perspectives to document a significant social and environmental movement that is quietly gathering momentum across this vast Indigenous estate. This series of essays, drawn from an unusual collaboration between university researchers and Indigenous land owners, tells a little-known story about Aboriginal people who are living on, working on and caring for the lands and seas that they own and manage. The ongoing struggles by Indigenous people to conserve and rehabilitate the outstanding natural and cultural values of their ancestral lands deserve wide recognition and acclaim.

Information on the volume can be found here. 

This volume can be purchased directly from The Federation Press by following the link below. 

To assist community legal centres (CLCs) to meet the cultural safety standards in the National Accreditation Scheme (NAS), the National Association of Community Legal Centres (NACLC) has developed this Guide to assist NACLC and CLCs to improve the attraction, recruitment, support and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees in the sector. 

In this award-winning work Carlson explores the complexities surrounding Aboriginal identity today. Drawing on a range of historical and research literature, interviews and surveys, The politics of identity explores Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal understandings of Aboriginality and the way these are produced and reproduced across a range of sites and contexts.

Emphasising Indigenous debates and claims about Aboriginality, The politics of identity explores both the community and external tensions around appropriate measures of identity and the pressures and effects of identification. An analysis of online Indigenous communities on social media that have emerged as sites of contestation adds to the growing knowledge in this area, both nationally and globally.

This is a brave and personal contribution to the often vexed subject of Aboriginal identity and offers a distinctive and fresh line of analysis.

A large and profitable Indigenous heritage management industry has emerged in the wake of the resources boom of recent decades, with thousands of Indigenous heritage impact assessments conducted every year. Yet few governments have successfully reformed heritage laws to accommodate native title rights, and conflict over site destruction is regularly front page news.

The right to protect sites brings together a range of authors who explore native title and Indigenous heritage regimes around the country, and charts the history of advocacy and policy development, highlighting the successes, limitations, inequalities and opportunities of current arrangements.

The research informing this paper engaged directly with young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people about their experiences of native title. This paper reveals a number of emerging issues for the native title sector and related fields such as governance, land and water management, and the wider community sector. Key insights in this paper include the evolving ways in which connections to country and culture are being experienced; the importance of active and ongoing support and mentorship; and the need for improved access to native title knowledge and information.