First Nations leaders Pabai Pabai and Paul Kabai filed a landmark class action against the Australian government to protect communities in the Torres Strait from climate change.
The Yoo-rrook Justice Commission is a royal commission seeking truth-telling on the historical and contemporary injustices experienced by First Nations peoples in Victoria.
A man from Skuppah Indian Band rides off on his motorcycle after stopping to watch a wildfire burn on the side of a mountain in Lytton, B.C., in July 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
While climate migration may be on the rise in Canada, it has been disproportionately impacting Indigenous people and communities for years.
We need more positive Indigenous-settler alliances like the one with Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, which created 24 km Freedom Road to provide access to the Trans-Canada Highway. Here a teepee frame sits beside Shoal Lake.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods
There aren’t enough international and domestic laws to address how the interests of humans and the needs of wildlife overlap.
Indigenous activists have drawn attention to threatened waterways, neglected Residential School cemeteries and other social issues by walking across Land. Here a group of settlers on an Indigenous Land acknowledgment pilgrimage.
Laurence Brisson/The Concordian
University, religious and sports gatherings often begin with an Indigenous Land acknowledgement. But what do they mean? And how can settler groups begin to walk the talk?
A nuclear arms race could have devastating effects, and working towards nuclear disarmament is becoming more urgent.
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The recent nuclear explosions in Russia serve as a reminder of the threat that nuclear weapons pose. Canada is uniquely situated to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons globally.
The Queensland treaty process is still in the early stages and negotiations will not begin for several years. But it’s still a historic step forward for Indigenous communities.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
Queensland has become the latest state or territory to embark on an Indigenous treaty process. But for lasting progress to be made, the federal government cannot shirk its responsibility.
The Treaty of Waitangi obliges the state to ensure that public policy is as effective for Māori as it is for everybody else.
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A report on primary health care found New Zealand fails to deliver good outcomes for Māori because the state does not stand aside to allow Māori to take charge of their own affairs.
Maps can be a tool in the defense of Indigenous communities against extractive industries.
Canadian Centre for Architecture; Grant Tigner, painter. Seagrams Limited, publisher. The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project, in The St. Lawrence Seaway: The Realization of a Mighty Dream, 1954.
Historically, western corporate maps have been privileged over Indigenous ones. But given the essential debate of territory in resource conflicts, maps are a crucial tool.
Victoria is the first state to pass legislation to begin a treaty process with Indigenous Australians.
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As treaty negotiations begin in Victoria, each party will have to accept the other’s legitimacy; that their own power is not absolute and unconditional.
Indigenous people feel powerless in their own country, as articulated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
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The rejection of the Referendum Council’s Report has derailed Indigenous constitutional recognition. Treaties at the state and territory level offer a clear path forward for meaningful reform.
The proposal for an Indigenous representative body came late into the constitutional recognition debate.
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The government has rejected the Referendum Council’s call for a national Indigenous representative assembly to be put into the Constitution.
The Referendum Council’s report is the conclusion of 18 months of consultation and discussion, including six months of regional dialogues with Indigenous people.
AAP/Paul Miller
Implicit in Malcolm Turnbull’s and Bill Shorten’s arguments that an Indigenous ‘voice to parliament’ would be a big change is the notion that it may be too difficult.
A treaty would be an agreement that is rather like that of host and guest, with rights and responsibilities for each party.
AAP/Joel Carrett
At the same time as it’s become clear that Indigenous people won’t accept a limited change, the right in Australian politics has become more determined to oppose any amendment.
The statement from the constitutional convention at Uluru reflects long-held Indigenous aspirations.
AAP/Lucy Hughes Jones
No treaty between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians has ever been recognised, but developments at the state level suggest this may soon change.
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University