This is a superseded dataset, the most recent Australia's Indigenous land and forest estate spatial dataset can be found at: https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/forestsaustralia/forest-data-maps-and-tools/spatial-data/indigenous-land-and-forest.
Australia’s Indigenous forest estate (2018) is a continental spatial dataset
of forest and non-forest land over which Indigenous peoples and
communities have ownership, management, or rights of use, assembled
for Australia's State of the Forests Report 2018. It was developed from
multiple data sources, including national, state and territory datasets
related to land in which there is an Indigenous interest. The Indigenous
land dataset is then combined with forest cover information from the
Forests of Australia (2018) dataset: https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/forests-of-australia-2018
The dataset was compiled by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and
Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) for the National Forest
Inventory (NFI), a collaborative partnership between the Australian and
state and territory governments. The role of the NFI is to collate, integrate
and communicate information on Australia's forests. The NFI applies a
national classification to state and territory data to allow seamless
integration of these datasets. Multiple independent sources of external
data are used to fill data gaps and improve the quality of the final dataset.
The NFI classifies Indigenous land into four categories:
*Indigenous owned and managed: freehold land that is both owned
and managed by Indigenous communities
*Indigenous managed: land that is managed, but not owned, by
Indigenous communities; and lands that are owned by Indigenous
people but have formal shared management agreements with
Australia and state and territory government agencies
*Indigenous co-managed: land that is owned and managed by other
parties, but has a formal, legally binding agreement in place that
includes input from Indigenous people in the process of
developing and implementing a management plan
*Other Special rights: land subject to native title determination,
registered Indigenous land use agreement, and legislated special
cultural use provision.
The Australia’s Indigenous forest estate (2018) dataset is produced to fulfil
requirements of Australia's National Forest Policy Statement and the
Regional Forests Agreement Act 2002 (Cwth), and is used by the Australian
Government for domestic and international reporting.
This dataset is updated every five years for the Australia's State of the Forests Report Series. Further information can be found on the Forests Australia website: http://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/forestsaustralia/sofr/sofr-2018