traditional owner

English

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Noun

traditional owner (plural traditional owners)

(Australia) A descendant of the tribe or ethnic group that occupied a particular region before European settlement, especially when that occupation is recognised by Australian law.
- 2005, John Bradley, Kathryn Seton, “2: Self-determination or ‘Deep Colonising’: Laind Claims, Colonial Authority and Indigenous Representation”, in Barbara Hocking, editor, Unfinished Constitutional Business?: Rethinking Indigenous Self-Determination, page 34:
  The Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976 (ALRA) has provided an avenue for Indigenous people in the Northern Territory to come to a court and give evidence to a Commonwealth appointed judge, known as the Land Commissioner, as to why he should ‘find them’ the traditional owners of certain tracts of Crown land.
- 2006, Dermot Smyth, Case Study 20.9: Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, Australia, Michael Lockwood, Graeme Worboys, Ashish Kothari, Managing Protected Areas: A Global Guide, page 539,
  During the 1950s, all of the remaining Aboriginal traditional owners were removed to a government settlement on nearby Croker Island. In 1981, the establishment of Gurig National Park was agreed to by the Northern Territory government and the Aboriginal traditional owners in order to resolve a pending land claim under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act of the Northrn Territory. Rather than proceed with the claim, the traditional owners consented to the establishment of the national park in return to^[sic] regaining title to their native lands.
- 2009, Richard Greggory Johnson, A Twenty-First Century Approach to Teaching Social Justice‎^[1], page 225:
  The decision of one senior traditional owner to stand outside the negotiation process militated against an even more favourable outcome.