Almost three decades after their legal battle began, Justice Bernard Murphy of the Federal Court made orders on Wednesday recognising the Wongkumara people as native title holders over 48,000 sq km of land and water in the channel country that covers both Queensland and New South Wales.
The determination area includes Cameron's Corner, through which the Cooper Creek flows, parts of the Strzelecki Desert; and Sturt Stony desert with Tibooburra as its only settlement.
The decision is the first occasion native title has been recognised across the Queensland / NSW border and the resolution of the native title claim by consent of all parties includes a compensation package negotiated with the State of New South Wales.
Lead Applicant Clancy McKellar said "it has been a hard and long journey but we have never given up".
"We know our old people are here with us in spirit today and we know they are proud of us, that we have finally won," he said.
"We look forward to the future in which we are recognised as belonging in our traditional country so we can continue to take care of it, in partnership with all the people who live here too."
In determining that Wongkumara native title exists Justice Murphy reflected on the harsh experiences inflicted on Wongkumara people in the past.
"In 1938 the NSW government forcibly carted Wongkumara people in trucks from their camp on the outskirts of Tibooburra to an Aboriginal settlement at Brewarrina and settlements further afield," he said.
"Many Wongkumara people were working as pastoral workers on remote cattle stations and they did not know that their families had been taken away until they returned to the camp, or where their families had been taken.
"One can only imagine the utter devastation and sorrow they must have felt upon losing their spouses, children, parents, siblings, other kin and friends in that way, and also the grief, loss and dislocation those who were taken away would have felt by being removed from their families and friends and from the country with which they were so connected. They were different times, but it is hard to fathom the lack of humanity involved."
Wongkumara lawyer Eddy Neumann said the Wongkumara people have been continuously lobbying and struggling for decades to receive native title recognition, "starting with their first native title claim which we lodged under the Commonwealth Native Title Act, in 1996".
"Many of the people who started the claim have passed away, so today's decision is bitter-sweet. The recognition today is the end of a long journey home," he said.
In the determination the Wongkumara people were also recognised has having shared native title rights - with the Yandruwandha Yawarrawarrka people - in an area of approximately 6,367 square kilometres running along the Queensland/ South Australia border.
Wongkumara people struggled for years to return to their traditional lands which includes many sacred and ceremonial sites including bora rings rock carvings, stone arrangements as well as tool making and ochre sites.
The Burke and Wills Dig Tree is also located in the second claim area; the two men died just across the SA border near Innamincka in 1861. The explorer John King, a member of Burke and Wills party, was saved and cared for by Wongkumara and Yandruwandha people in the claim area.
