The Customary Land Podcast

In this episode of The Customary Land Podcast, Spike Boydell reflects on why compensation is often not enough in customary land, tribal land, and Indigenous land contexts.

What may appear at first to be a reasonable lease, licence, compensation package, or revenue formula can, over time, narrow customary authority, weaken stewardship, and leave future generations with less room to decide. The deeper issue is not simply the size of t...

The International Valuation Standards 2028 Exposure Draft makes an important advance by recognising informal, communal, collective and tribal land interests more explicitly than many earlier standards have done. But when viewed through the realities of customary land, it still raises a deeper concern: what happens when a global technical valuation framework tries to make sense of customary land without first understanding what cust...

Fiji is currently reviewing the Mining Act 1965 and the Quarries Act 1939. In this episode of The Customary Land Podcast, Spike Boydell reflects on why that matters for customary landowners, and why compensation, royalties and consultation are not enough unless legitimacy, stewardship and long-horizon responsibility come first.

This episode explores the deeper structural mismatch between inherited extractive law and living customary...

This podcast episode “Riding the Tides of Justice: Indigenous Sovereignty Across the Pacific” explores the rising global movement for Indigenous sovereignty, sparked recently by Senator Lidia Thorpe’s powerful call for land justice during King Charles III’s visit to Australia. It delves into how this cry resonates across the Pacific, connecting global demands for Indigenous land rights with local traditions of stewardship. Highligh...

In this episode I discuss several of the customary land related reviews initiated in 2023 by the Rabuka led Coalition Government in Fiji.  These include:
The Review of the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC).
And, as foreshadowed by Prof Steve Ratuva in his public lecture celebrating Ratu Sakuna Day celebrations, and requested at the meeting of the GCC on Bau Island in late May,..
the proposed Review of the iQoliqoli (Fishing...

In this episode I explore how becoming a Republic and crafting a new Constitution fit for purpose in the 2020s offers Australia the perfect opportunity to truly recognise the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 'Voice'.

An Australian Republic means we need to replace the Crown and the Crown's superior interest in the land with something.  If that 'something' is an acknowledgement of the guardian...

Differing worldviews constitute the 'Plurality of Registers' and the tension of navigating between customary and traditional relations to land as 'ours' versus the western materialism of possessive individualism that sees land as 'mine'.

In part, this episode is triggered by the anachronism of a coronation in 2023, particularly when former empire and commonwealth is viewed from the  plundere...

In this episode I sit down for a far-reaching conversation about the valuation of unregistered land with Mike McDermott PhD MA FAPI FRSA.  Mike is an International Land Policy and Valuation Implementation Consultant who is also the author of Wicked Valuations and Landed Property.  He has advised a diversity of governments, development agencies, donors and professional organisations.

Traditional valuation approaches are inc...

Leases are a common tool to enable surplus (or non-reserve) native land, tribal land or customary land to be used productively, be it for primary production, commercial or residential purposes. When properly crafted and managed, leasehold tenure should enable inalienable customary land to be used productively for the benefit of landowners, tenants and governmental development.
Unfortunately through a series of historical events...

In this episode I sit down with Prof. John Sheehan AM to reflect on and explore lessons from the Timber Creek case.

Our far-reaching discussion includes recognition (and extinguishment) of inalienable customary land rights, which are precarious, Native Title, s.51 xxxi of the Constitution of Australia ('just terms' compensation), and the relationship to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People's...

In this episode we explore who 'owns' Customary Land... and it isn't as obvious as you may think!

The episode is built around a paper that I co-authored with a former lawyer colleague, Krishn Shah, in which we explored customary land ownership using Fiji as a case study.  Using Fiji is helpful, as Native Land Records have been kept since the time of the Deed of Cession to Queen Victoria in 1874.  This sets F...

In this episode we introduce 'Customary Land' and use land related articles from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN DRIP 2007) to explain its importance in contemporary society.

For example, among the many important Articles in the Declaration:

00:14:16 Article 18 & 19 provide the framework and authority for an Aboriginal Voice' in the current constitutional a...

The Customary Land Podcast is about all things relating to the equitable management of customary land. We will be discussing tools and ideas needed to manage, use and equitably maximise interests in land at the interface of custom, tradition and development in its many forms.

The Customary Land Podcast is for everyone living on, identifying with and wanting to use or access resources in or on Customary Land.  This includes those who...