Indigenous land and sea management: Recognition, redistribution, representation

Abstract

Australians are increasingly responding to national issues of climate change, water shortage, biodiversity loss and ecological sustainability: carbon pollution reduction and management of fresh water in the Murray–Darling Basin have been high profile, hotly contested political issues. What remains poorly understood is that more and more land is coming under Indigenous ownership and management and that these lands are among the most environmentally intact across the Australian continent. Given their substantial land holdings and traditions of resource management, Indigenous people will have a growing role to play in tackling national and global environmental challenges and finding solutions in both the Indigenous and national interest. This fact needs urgent recognition.