We recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the sovereign Traditional Owners of Australia and thank them for their stewardship of this Country, its lands, waters and skies. We respectfully acknowledge their culture and customary practices, and pay respect to their Ancestors, Elders and future leaders.

For the first time, the State of the Environment report includes a strong Indigenous narrative across all 12 thematic chapters, a narrative crafted through recognising the leadership, collaboration and authorship of Indigenous Australians who continue their connection as Traditional Owners to their lands, waters and skies.

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On 28 March 2025 the government assumed a Caretaker role. Information on websites maintained by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water will be published in accordance with the Guidance on Caretaker Conventions until after the conclusion of the caretaker period.

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Figure 21 Seven sisters dreaming songline map

Source: Indigenous Atlas of Australia; © Josephine Watjara Mick/Copyright Agency, 2022

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Figure 22 Two Perspectives, One Narrative: proposed confidence score grading approach for the Torres Strait state of the environment report

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Figure 23 Indigenous ranger groups and Indigenous Protected Areas, 2021

Source: NIAA (2021a)

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Figure 24 Word cloud of discussions at the Expert Elicitation Roundtable

Note: Size of words is in proportion to the number of times each word was spoken.

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Figure 25 Four-box approach to the communication of confidence

Source: IPBES (2016)

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Table 1 Distribution of Indigenous population in Australia according to remoteness categories

Remoteness category^a	Usual place of residence^b (%)	People who identify as Indigenous^c (%)
Major Cities	37.4	1.5
Inner Regional	24.0	3.9
Outer Regional	19.7	7.0
Remote	6.2	16.0
Very Remote	12.2	46.0

aExcludes Other Territories (according to 2016 Census data), comprising Jervis Bay Territory, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island and Norfolk Island, Migratory-Offshore-Shipping, and No Usual Address.

bUsual residence, excludes overseas visitors or Indigenous people living overseas, according to 2016 Census data.

According to 2016 Census data.

Source: ABS (2018)

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Table 2 Areas and proportion of lands of the Indigenous estate in Australia

Attribute	Definition	Land area (’000 ha)	Proportion of Australia’s total land area (%)^a
Indigenous owned	Freehold land or forest that is owned by Indigenous communities, or land or forest for which ownership is vested through other mechanisms	133,501	17.0
Indigenous managed	Land or forest that is managed by Indigenous communities	141,357	18.0
Indigenous co-managed	Land or forest that has a formal, legally binding agreement in place to include input from Indigenous people in the process of developing and implementing a management plan	32,707	4.3
Subject to other recognised Indigenous rights	Land or forest subject to native title determinations, registered Indigenous Land Use Agreements and legislated special cultural use provisions	337,174	44.0
Total area in Australia	Combination of the above taking account of the overlap between categories	437,679	57.0

aCalculated from the total area of Australia of 768,909,000 hectares (ha).

Note: Totals may not tally due to rounding.

Sources: Jacobsen et al. (2020), Rist et al. (2019). Note about the original: The attributes of the Indigenous estate (this work) and the National Forest Inventory tenure classes (ABARES 2018a) are assembled independently using different sources of data, which have varying currency. The datasets used in this work are those used for reporting in MPIGA & NFISC (2018), and different results could be obtained using more recent datasets.

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Table 3 Australian access and benefit-sharing laws relating to Indigenous resources

Legislation	Description	Indigenous focus
*Commonwealth – Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999* and Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Regulations 2000, Part 8A**	A permit is required to access biological resources. In addition, a benefit-sharing agreement is required to be entered into with each access provider, such as the Indigenous owner of land, for access for (potential) commercial purposes under part 17 of the Regulations	If the biological resources to which access is sought are in an area that is Indigenous people’s land and an access provider for the resources is the owner of the land or a native title holder for the land, the owner or native title holder must give informed consent to a benefit-sharing agreement concerning access to the biological resources (Article 8A.10(1), EPBC Regs). The Regulations also stipulate (Article 8A.08, EPBC Regs) that prior informed consent and benefit sharing are required for access where Indigenous knowledge is used for research and development
Australian Capital Territory – Nature Conservation Act 2014	An applicant for a nature conservation licence to access biological resources for commercial purposes in a reserve must enter into a benefit-sharing agreement with each access provider of the resources	Covers access to biological resources in reserves, including those held by native title holders
*Queensland – Biodiscovery and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2020* (amends the Biodiscovery Act 2004)**	The Act imposes an obligation on persons accessing traditional knowledge when engaging in or preparing to engage in biodiscovery. Those persons must take all reasonable and practical measures to ensure they do not use the traditional knowledge for biodiscovery other than under an agreement with the custodians of the knowledge. The relevant minister must be satisfied that traditional knowledge will be protected before entering into benefit-sharing agreements	The Act is accompanied by the Traditional Knowledge Code of Practice (2021). The code clarifies the circumstances under which a biodiscovery entity must meet the traditional knowledge obligation. The 6 requirements are: identify the custodians of traditional knowledge obtain free, prior and informed consent establish a benefit-sharing agreement on mutually agreed terms where possible, obtain consent and a benefit-sharing agreement prior to the use of publicly available traditional knowledge provide the opportunity for custodianship claimants to consent and negotiate benefit sharing even after biodiscovery has commenced provide evidence to the state of compliance with the code
Northern Territory – Biological Resources Act 2006	Bioprospectors must enter into benefit-sharing agreements with each resource access provider. Resource access providers are required to give prior informed consent for a benefit-sharing agreement to be valid	Benefit-sharing arrangements must include protection for, recognition of and valuing of any Indigenous people’s knowledge to be used under s. 29

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Table 4 Indigenous data needs compared with BADDR data

Dominant BADDR data	Indigenous data needs
Blaming data: Too much data contrasts Indigenous and non-Indigenous data, rating the problematic Indigene against the normed Australian as the ubiquitous pejorative standard	Lifeworld data: We need data to inform a comprehensive, nuanced narrative of who we are as peoples, of our culture, our communities, of our resilience, our goals and our successes
Aggregate data: Too much data are aggregated at the national and/or state level, implying Indigenous cultural and geographical homogeneity	Disaggregated data: We need data that recognise our cultural and geographical diversity and can provide evidence for community-level planning and service delivery
Decontextualised data: Too much data are simplistic and decontextualised, focusing on individuals and families outside of their social/cultural context	Contextualised data: We need data that are inclusive of the wider social structural context/complexities in which Indigenous disadvantage occurs
Deficit, government priority data: Too much (way too much) 5D data: These data focus on disadvantage, disparity, dysfunction, difference, deficit (Walter 2016) collected to serve government priorities	Indigenous priority data: We need data that measure not just our problems but data that address our priorities and agenda
Restricted access data: Too much data are barricaded away by official statistical agencies and institutions	Available amenable data: We need data that are accessible and amenable to our requirements

BADDR = blaming, aggregate, decontextualised, deficit and restricted

Source: Reproduced from Table 1 in Walter et al. (2020)

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Table 5 Area of land by Indigenous ownership, management arrangement or other rights, by jurisdiction

Jurisdiction	Area (’000 hectares)						Total land area that is in the Indigenous estate (%)
Jurisdiction	Total land area	Indigenous owned	Indigenous managed	Indigenous co-managed	Other special rights	Total land area in the Indigenous estate^a	Total land area that is in the Indigenous estate (%)
ACT	236	0	0	107	0	107	45.0
NSW	80,131	447	444	3,171	1,920	4,862	6.1
NT	134,837	66,016	61,601	4,567	40,262	103,552	77.0
Qld	173,002	8,847	6,626	4,358	84,046	86,887	50.0
SA	98,430	22,217	20,259	14,908	57,767	79,083	80.0
Tas	6,829	69	68	1,555	0	1,624	24.0
Vic	22,742	111	12	429	8,518	8,579	38.0
WA	252,702	35,794	52,346	3,613	144,660	152,985	61.0
Total^b	768,909	133,501	141,357	32,707	337,174	437,679	57.0

ACT = Australian Capital Territory; NSW = New South Wales; NT = Northern Territory; Qld = Queensland; SA = South Australia; Tas = Tasmania; Vic = Victoria; WA = Western Australia

The total land area in the Indigenous estate is not the sum of the areas in the preceding columns as some land has more than one attribute.
Totals may not add up due to rounding.

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