Researching spatial data for compensation claims

Presentation by Tegen Scott 

Summary: In this presentation, Tegen Scott argues that those working on compensation claims need to ‘think spatially’ and to research systematically. She outlines the significance of a wide range of sources, from satellite imagery to mining company technical and environmental reports to media articles, in detecting activities since 1975 that may have impacted on Aboriginal people’s connections to their country and their native title rights and interests . While Tegen’s own experience is in Western Australia, with its own particularities, the principle of ‘thinking spatially’ in developing a systematic, thorough and creative interrogation of a wide range of sources to ascertain compensable acts, seems broadly applicable.

‘Cultural loss’: Emotions, Aboriginal people, and country: an example from Kendall River, Cape York

An interview with David Martin 

Summary: This video was filmed in 2015, near the mouth of the Kendall River south of Aurukun on the western shores of Cape York peninsula. It comprises an interview by Donna Green, an environmental scientist, of David Martin who had lived with Kendall River Wik people near here at Kuchentheypen outstation for a year in 1977-78. The video includes discussions of David Martin’s understandings of the deep connections between these Wik people and their country, including the nexus between people’s perceptions of ‘healthy people’ and ‘healthy country’. The discussion also focuses on people’s sense of loss occasioned by their absence from their country, and how this absence in turn leads to country itself becoming unsocialised and ‘wild’. These are arguably matters germane to the concept of ‘cultural loss’ established by the High Court in the Timber Creek matter.

Kevin Smith: Native Title Compensation: NNTC Proposed Resolution Framework
Kevin Smith Presentation.Pdf