Guide spearheads native title renewable negotiations

Detailed summary

A new guide is helping empower Native Title holders negotiate renewable energy projects as companies prepare to lodge large-scale development plans.

Home to sacred waterholes, an ancient geological site could transform as two renewable companies look to lodge large-scale development plans.

Legislation being flexed for the first time is levelling the playing field between energy companies and native title holders, according to Kokatha/Wirangu man Dr John Binda Reid.

Four renewable projects with a proposed capacity of 13 GW were selected by the South Australian government last month to build a green energy hub in the Whyalla region.

Another two companies have been shortlisted in the Gawler Ranges region in an area covering 5,200 square kilometres of native title land.

Both areas were released for developers in January under South Australia's Hydrogen and Renewable Energy Act.

It's the country's first dedicated legislation for large-scale renewable energy and was a result of 18 months of discussions with 26 native title holders.

Dr Reid, from the Gawler Ranges Aboriginal Corporation and Adelaide University, said it was a massive undertaking that allowed Aboriginal people to mandate and enforce protection of environment and cultural heritage.

It's the inspiration behind what Dr Reid calls the Great Matters Guide, a set of criteria for companies to follow involving respectful, two-way relationship-building between Aboriginal communities.

"The main thing we wanted the companies to understand was the significance of the environment, nature, the ecologies, the ecosystems and the biodiversity that had been vulnerable because pastoralism had damaged that previously," he said

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