Cape York native title grant ends legal saga

AUSTRALIA'S longest-run and most divisive native title claim has been settled after two decades of litigation.

AUSTRALIA'S longest-run and most divisive native title claim has been settled after two decades of litigation.

Federal Court judge Andrew Greenwood today granted native title to 4500 sq km of land and rivers on Queensland's Cape York Peninsula to the local Wik and Wik Way peoples, in the fifth and final instalment of the Wik case.

It ends a legal saga that dates back to 1993, after the High Court recognised native title in the Mabo decision, and then found in the Wik case that it could co-exist with pastoral leases.

Applause rippled through a stifling auditorium in the Aboriginal community of Aurukun in the western cape after Justice Greenwood flew in to hand down the decision.

It means local Aborigines will have the legal right to hunt and fish on their traditional lands, access them for camping and ceremonial purposes and hold traditional ceremonies there.

However, it excludes use of the land and parts of two rivers covered by the judgment for commercial purposes.

A delighted Victor Lawrence, 67, welcomed the decision but said it had been too long coming.

“I feel heavy in the heart we are not all here,” he said of the claimants, who had died since the case got underway 19 years ago.