After years of negotiations, the State Government has agreed to return more than 80 hectares of crown land to the local Land Council.
It happened after Orange City Council and the Orange Local Aboriginal Lands Council sat around the negotiating table with officials from the Crown Lands Dept representing the state Government.
The government’s new approach was designed to avoid the one-by-one series of native title claims, a process that can take years to sort through in each case.
The negotiations put a long list of properties on the table which could be discussed at the one time.