GLOBAL - A landmark legal claim by the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people seeking formal recognition of their native title over Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, and its surrounding regions has ignited a global conversation on indigenous land rights, drawing sharp parallels with Kenya's enduring efforts to redress colonial and post-colonial land alienation. The claim, filed in Australia's Federal Court on Friday, 7 November 2025, covers thousands of square kilometres of land, including significant urban and conservation areas.

The Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung community is seeking legal recognition of their continuous connection to and rights over the land according to their traditional laws and customs. This move, described by claimants as a historic step towards justice, does not aim to displace homeowners or seize private property. Instead, it targets unoccupied or state-controlled 'Crown land', seeking rights to access, use, and be consulted on the management of these areas, which include national parks and state forests. Wurundjeri elder Perry Wandin clarified that the goal is to work with the government to "look after that country," not to reclaim suburban backyards.

This legal action is grounded in Australia's Native Title Act of 1993. The Act itself was a legislative response to the groundbreaking 1992 High Court decision in Mabo v Queensland (No 2), which overturned the legal doctrine of 'terra nullius' — the fiction that Australia was a 'land belonging to no one' before British colonisation. The Mabo case established that Indigenous peoples' traditional land rights (native title) survived colonisation and could be recognised by Australian common law where a continuous connection to the land was proven and the title had not been legally 'extinguished'.

A Familiar Echo in Kenya

The Australian case resonates deeply with Kenya's own painful history of land dispossession. From the British colonial administration declaring vast swathes of productive land as 'Crown Land' through ordinances starting in 1915, to post-independence redistribution programs that often benefited the politically connected, the issue of historical land injustices remains a raw, unresolved wound. Kenya's 2010 Constitution and subsequent land laws provide a framework for addressing these historical claims, defining them as unfair dispossessions that occurred between 15 June 1895 and 27 August 2010.

Like the Wurundjeri, Kenyan communities such as the Ogiek and the Endorois have waged long legal battles for the recognition of their ancestral land rights. The Ogiek, traditional forest dwellers in the Mau Forest, and the Endorois, pastoralists evicted from their land around Lake Bogoria in the 1970s for a game reserve, have secured landmark rulings in their favour. However, their path to justice has been markedly different. While the Wurundjeri are utilising a domestic federal court system established specifically to handle such claims, the Ogiek and Endorois had to turn to regional bodies—the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights—after exhausting local remedies.

These African judicial bodies have affirmed the communities' status as indigenous peoples and recognised their collective ownership of ancestral lands, ordering restitution and compensation from the Kenyan government. Despite these victories, implementation remains a significant challenge, a point of divergence from the Australian system where native title determinations, once made, are legally binding domestically.

Treaty, Title, and Truth-Telling

The Wurundjeri's claim is further contextualised by political developments in the state of Victoria, which recently became the first Australian jurisdiction to pass a formal treaty with its Aboriginal people. This dual approach of pursuing both native title (a legal recognition of existing rights over land) and treaty (a broader political agreement on sovereignty and self-determination) represents a comprehensive push for justice. The process in Victoria has also included the establishment of the Yoorrook Justice Commission, a formal truth-telling body tasked with investigating historical and ongoing injustices, a mechanism that has been advocated for in Kenya to fully address the scope of land grievances.

The claim also highlights the historical site of Coranderrk, an Aboriginal reserve established in 1863. Initially a successful, self-governing farming community, its residents were later subjected to paternalistic government controls and forced removals under assimilationist policies, a history that mirrors the disruption of traditional lifestyles experienced by communities like the Endorois in Kenya.

While the legal and political landscapes differ, the core struggle is the same: a fight for the recognition of pre-existing rights, a continuous connection to ancestral land, and a voice in the stewardship of that land. As the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung embark on what could be a decades-long legal process, their journey offers a compelling case study for Kenyans on the potential and the pitfalls of using legal frameworks to correct the injustices of the past.