What are Mabo, Wik and Native Title?
Native Title is the name given by Australian law to Indigenous peoples’ traditional rights to their lands and waters. Those rights can range from a relationship similar to full ownership through to the right to go onto the land for ceremonies or to hunt, fish, or gather food and bush medicines. To have their native title rights recognised, the Indigenous group has to prove they still have connection with their country according to their own traditional laws. The first Australian recognition of native title came in the Mabo Case of 1992 where the High Court recognised the native title rights of the Meriam people of the Torres Strait. This decision rejected the doctrine of terra nullius a Latin term meaning land of no one which had formed the legal basis for British occupation of the continent in 1788. The idea of terra nullius had been used by Britain and other colonial powers to deny the existence of Indigenous law and land ownership, and negated the obligation to secure treaties with
