Matthew Franklin; 30/1/10; (2 Items)
Aborigines in an Alice Springs community will be given their first opportunity to buy their homes outright under a landmark deal expected to spark a revolution in land tenure reform. Residents of Ilpeye Ilpeye, an Alice Springs town camp, have agreed to pass the title of their land to the commonwealth, allowing it to transfer the land to freehold and clear the way for subdivisions and individual ownership. In return, the commonwealth will flood the community with new infrastructure as part of a $100 million commitment to clean up the town camps, where some indigenous people have lived in squalor for decades.
See: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/camps-swap-land-for-houses-in-alice-springs/story-e6frg6nf-1225824895969; Landscape of despondency as bureaucrats rebuild the bush; Nicolas Rothwell; 30/1/10January; http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/landscape-of-despondency-as-bureaucrats-rebuild-the-bush/story-e6frg6z6-1225824629048
We have the right to draw incomes from our land
Galarrwuy Yunupingu; 30/1/10
A few years ago, as I searched for an industry that would employ and encourage the young men of my clan, I became interested in forestry. In northeast Arnhem Land we are surrounded by savannah forest, which holds millions of hardwood stringybark trees. On my own land a mining company has been ripping up and burning 150 ha of this forest a year for 40 years, while elsewhere thousands of hectares are left on our country in non-sacred areas. Our clan leaders saw that we have a resource that could provide work for the younger men and women. So my brothers and I got hold of an old timber mill, cut down some trees, and produced timber beams to build a shed.
See: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/we-have-the-right-to-draw-incomes-from-our-land/story-e6frg6zo-1225824635615
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Culture, Human Rights, Land