In Australia, there are now many examples of Traditional Owners developing clean energy projects in partnership with clean energy developers and companies.

This discussion paper looks at how Australian Traditional Owners are taking charge of large-scale clean energy projects on their Country.

Key takeaways include finding that regulatory approvals are likely to be faster where the Traditional Owner group is the owner/co-owner of the project, or substantially involved in the project from an early stage. 

Additional takeaways include:

• Traditional Owners have a legal veto over large-scale clean energy projects.
• Many groups are taking charge of clean energy projects on their Country, far more so than is possible for mining, oil and gas.
• Cultural heritage is easier to protect for clean energy projects than it is for mining, oil and gas projects.
• Traditional Owners must be resourced properly - to undertake their own wind and solar mapping, to obtain legal & financial advice - in order to best benefit from the clean energy transition.

Authors: Dr Lily O’Neill and Dr Kathryn Thorburn, University of Melbourne, published March 2025.

Read the paper

We just held a webinar on 'Negotiations for Traditional Owners'. The key takeout? Clean energy project negotiations can be complex!

Ensuring First Nations people and communities participate in and benefit from the clean energy transition is the focus of a community roundtable in Alice Springs on 16-17 May 2023.

In the coming decades Australia is set to see a dramatic expansion in renewable energy projects. It is likely that many of these will occur on land subject to Indigenous rights and interests.

The paper concludes that while the guiding principles and the content of access and benefit sharing agreements may be quite similar between the extractive and renewable industries, there are a number of critical differences between these industries that may impact agreement content.

These are that renewable energy developments use a completely renewable resource; are usually not limited to specific geographic areas (although certain areas are more conducive to both wind and solar projects); generally require a much greater land area; have physical impacts that are almost completely reversible; affect visual amenity over greater distances (in the case of wind); are potentially in place for more than one generation; and may allow Traditional Owners continued land access.

Additionally, the use of native title land for renewable energy projects will raise different issues for native title holders and companies than the renewable energy industry’s experience to date with neighbouring communities in high population areas.

Renewable energy companies would be well advised to heed the changing attitudes and experience of the extractive industry over the past two decades in relation to best practice.

Authors: L O’Neill, K Thorburn and J Hunt

Read the paper here

O’Neill, L., Thorburn, K. and Hunt, J. (2019), Ensuring Indigenous benefit from large-scale renewable energy projects: Drawing on experience from extractive industry agreement making, Working Paper No. 127, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra.

Thanks for use of the photo Anthony Ketland.

Australian law recognises that First Nations people have rights and interests in the land and sea under their traditional laws and customs - that they are Traditional Owners. As highlighted in this factsheet by AIATSIS, any engagement processes needs to be based on the principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) that recognise the critical decision making role of Traditional Owners. 

Read the factsheet