Change requires urgency: How First Nations knowledges and lived experience can shape climate outcomes

Francis Nona, QUT School of Medicine, Professor Rowena Maguire and Oscar Davison, QUT School of Law and Centre for Justice

When thinking about climate change, human rights and native title litigation, it’s easy to become focused on technical legal processes and court requirements. Such a focus means that consideration of outcomes of such cases for communities is often overlooked.

Research shows that a legal win on climate argument in courts, results in no practical outcome or remedy for communities.

First Nations voices continue to play a leading role in bringing innovative legal questions before courts and there is a need for reform to evidence law to ensure that courts sufficiently consider and draw upon this evidence in formulating their decisions.

There is a need to recognise that the knowledge of First Nations peoples is as reliable as forms of expert evidence. There is a need to listen to the first custodians of Australia and the Pacific: the first conservationists, the first gardeners, and the first lawyers and lawmakers.

On 6 June 2026, the QUT Centre for Justice and Faculty of Business and Law, in partnership with the Queensland Law Reform Commission (QLRC), brought together an expert panel of First Nations leaders, legal practitioners, academics and policymakers to interrogate to explore how the review of the evidence currently being undertaken by the QLRC can ensure that First Nations evidence is not only admissible but also used to shape legal outcomes. This high-level panel discussion was facilitated by Francis Nona, Senior Lecturer in Indigenous Medical Education at QUT.

Some of the key themes which emerged included: the divergence between Western and Indigenous relationships with the environment; how current approaches to working with First Nations peoples undermine sovereignty and connections to Country; and the hope that things can improve if the Government begins to take First Nations peoples seriously.

However, gaps remain in Australia’s current legal approaches to understanding, hearing, utilising and responding to evidence presented by First Nations peoples in courts.

Both Cassie Lang, a Bundjalung woman and leading legal practitioner specialising in Indigenous governance, native title and cultural heritage, and Dr Ivan Ingram, a Wiradjuri and Filipino legal practitioner specialising in native title, Indigenous governance, human rights and truth-telling, spoke to how current approaches to First Nations governance fail to recognise climate change as a legitimate human rights issue.

Dr Ingram stressed that governments and project proponents need to “treat First Nations peoples as rights holders, not just stakeholders”.

Ms Lang reflected on the amount of money that’s going to First Nations communities but is failing to respond to their needs due to systemic failures to listen to First Nations peoples. She reflected on the $25 million that went to construct a sea wall in Saibai Island that fails to stop water, because First Nations peoples were not appropriately consulted throughout the construction process.

Looking forward, the panellists reflected on what gives them hope for the future.

For Mr Warusam, “Our songs, our dance, our language... In 2040, I will still be singing and dancing.”

For Ms Ramsay, it’s the “Pacific students fighting climate change who didn’t know it was impossible to get a question before the ICJ.

“[We have] youth that don’t care if something is impossible [and are] willing to demand that an institution recognise harm.”

For Dr Ingram, “The growing number of First Nations lawyers’ gives me hope that we can liberate from the inside out.”

However, change requires urgency. Change requires courage. Change requires acknowledging that the way we have been responding to climate change has failed, and continuing to do the same thing will get us nowhere.

Ms Lang said that the Australian legal system was “built in institutions where there has not been acknowledgement of First Nations peoples and our complex governance frameworks.”

She outlined how First Nations peoples understand that “everything is borrowed from future generations”.

“Perhaps climate change is not asking us to invent a new way [of protecting the environment], but recognising a way that’s been practiced the whole time,” she said.

As Australian and International courts begin to hear more evidence from First Nations peoples, Western legal systems must acknowledge their own limitations.

Current approaches have exacerbated the climate crisis, and responses from Government often exacerbate harm by failing to make use of knowledge developed by First Nations peoples over thousands of years.

As we reflect on NAIDOC 2026 ‘50 Years of Deadly’, these conversations remind us that significant gaps remain in Australia’s ability to respond to the needs of First Nations peoples.

Much work is needed from all sectors of society to ensure that First Nations peoples are not just seen, but heard, respected and empowered to make decisions that affect their way of life.

The QUT Faculty of Business and Law and the QUT Centre for Justice, in partnership with the Queensland Law Reform Commission, hosted a roundtable during NAIDOC Week 2026 exploring First Nations perspectives and experiences in providing evidence in climate, human rights and native title litigation.

The roundtable brought together First Nations leaders, legal practitioners, academics and policy makers to consider the importance of First Nations knowledges, lived experience and practical outcomes associated with providing evidence in litigation.