The Federal Court recognised today that native title exists over areas of sea surrounding the Wellesley Islands group in Queensland's Gulf of Carpentaria, around 400 kilometres north of Mt Isa.
This was the first major court decision to recognise native title sea rights since the High Court's landmark
Croker Island decision of October 2001.
In today's decision,
Lardil People v State of Queensland, the court found that the Lardil, Yangkaal, Kaiadilt and Gangalidda peoples held non-exclusive rights in line with their traditional law and customs over areas of sea and part of the Albert River on the mainland.
The rights recognised include: the right to fish, hunt and gather living and plant resources and the right to hunt and take turtle and dugong in the inter-tidal zone and surrounding waters for personal, domestic or non-commercial communal consumption; the right to take and consume fresh drinking water from fresh water springs in the inter-tidal zone; the right to access the land and waters seaward of the high water line for religious or spiritual purposes; and to access sites of spiritual or religious significance.
The court deternined that native title existed over only a portion of the original claim area.
As in the
Croker Island case, the native title rights recognised in today's decision exist alongside rights under other State and Commonwealth laws such as those allowing recreational and commercial fishing and shipping in the area.
Today's decision brings to a conclusion a process which began on 12 March 1996 when the claim was first lodged with the National Native Title Tribunal. After efforts at mediation between the parties failed, the case was referred to the Federal Court in November 1997.
It involved some 33 days of court hearings, spanning more than three years during which the key native title cases of
Croker,
Yorta Yorta and
Ward were decided by the High Court of Australia. Those decisions provided the legal basis for the judgment delivered today.