Indigenous rights and water resource management: not just another stakeholder/Indigenous water rights in law and regulation

Abstract

Last year this journal devoted an entire edition to Indigenous water management in acknowledgement of the growing importance of Indigenous peoples’ struggles over water in Australia (see v. 26, issue 3). That two books analysing the legal frameworks for recognising Indigenous water rights were published last year (O’Bryan 2019; Macpherson 2019) reflects the attention that some in the scholarly community are now giving to one of the country’s most neglected environmental governance issues, a failing that is embedded in our settler-colonial legal history. These texts will greatly help those involved in water management, or others who work in Indigenous natural resource management, to understand the legal basis of our unjust water governance system.