The Federal Court has ruled that a disputed area of land in North Queensland’s Cape York should be recognised as being held under shared native title, resolving a long-running boundary dispute between neighbouring Indigenous groups.
Chief Justice Debra Mortimer found the evidence did not support exclusive ownership by either the Lama Lama or Umpila groups, instead recognising communal rights based on shared ancestry.
The land will not be divided between the two groups, but will be shared amongst them.
The two Aboriginal groups had already reached consent determinations over large swathes of adjoining lands but an area around Massy and Breakfast creeks remained in dispute, with both groups making a claim of ownership.
The court heard that the Lama Lama tribe had moved into the area after European settlement, after the Umpila tribe were moved to the Lockhart River Mission.
Both groups had been “sandbeach people,” a distinct type of Aboriginal who lived by the ocean and were basically fishers and dugong and turtle hunters.
Mortimer also rejected a claim by the state of Queensland that parts of the disputed zone were not capable of Native Title recognition.
The Queensland government agreed to coastal parts of the land coming under native title, but claimed inland areas lacked evidence to support a claim.
“I find there is a sufficient probative basis in the lay evidence, and in the documentary evidence, to support a finding that at or around effective sovereignty the apical ancestors who held title in the disputed area had a title under traditional law and custom that extended from the coast up to the foothills of the ranges to ‘up top’ where it met the country of the inland clans ...,” she said.
The court is now set to complete its determination of native title over the disputed area.
Native title claims in the Cape York area have totalled millions of hectares to date.
Native title is the legal recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ traditional rights and interests in land and waters under Australian law.
It was recognised by the High Court in the landmark Mabo decision in 1992, which overturned the doctrine of terra nullius.
