Landholders Guide to Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Workshop

📍Tea Gardens, NSW

📅 1st June 2024

Working with the Mid Coast 2 Tops Landcare group, I was invited up the coast to Tea Gardens, NSW, to meet with local landholders to host a joint workshop with archaeologist David Cameron, discussing the significance of Aboriginal Cultural Heritage, and the role of landholders in the protection of this heritage.

We spent some time myth-busting fears of land reclamation, and understanding what actually happens if you find Aboriginal Cultural Heritage in NSW and how amazing some of these finds can be!

Poor communication of heritage legislation to the public has led to decades of misinformation that still affects landholders to this day. These conversations about where they myths came from, addressing the of fear of land reclamation, and acknowledging that this loss of land, home and Country is exactly what happened to First Nations peoples during and after colonisation is a first step to engaging landholders in cultural heritage, and protecting it into the future.