Zarna Carter gave back her 30 acres of land in Australia’s Flinders Ranges to its original inhabitants, and they welcomed her as “Aunty”. “I wanted the best for this country and the best way was to involve them — and it seemed like that was the most respectful way — was to actually give that back to them, which was always theirs anyway,” she said.

She had originally planned to keep horses on the land, but soon realized that would not work. Realizing it would be a huge task to restore the land, she began to think about how else she could achieve the goal – and that was to donate the land to the Nukunu Wapma Thura Aboriginal Corporation.

Nukunu elder Kym Thomas, who explained that the land has shelter trees created by his people long ago to provide accommodation on long journeys, said he had never heard of someone just giving their land to an Indigenous group.

That led me to wonder – are there other cases of people giving land back to its original inhabitants? And, as it turns out, there are. Quite a few, which is heartening. So many, in fact, that this is a very long post.