Who are the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance
The First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance is a coalition of member organisations representing First Nations Peoples from across Australia, including major Native Title, Land Rights, Traditional Owner, and community-controlled organisations nationally.
In a historic meeting held on the 17 June 2020, following the shocking destruction of the sacred 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge Caves in the Pilbara Western Australia, Aboriginal leaders from across Australia – representing Aboriginal Land Councils, Native Title Representative Bodies and Service Providers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled Organisations – expressed their outrage at the destruction vowing to pursue national reforms to prevent this from ever happening again.
A mandate was created to strengthen and modernise cultural heritage laws and to create industry reforms that ensure Indigenous Cultural Heritage is valued and protected for the future.
Alliance Governance
See the FNHPA governance charter here.
Alliance governance structure
Alliance co-chairs
Kado Muir
Co-chair at First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance and Chairman of National Native Title Council, Kado Muir is a Ngalia Traditional Owner, a Wati – a Goldfields Aboriginal cultural and community leader, and an anthropologist/archaeologist with many years’ experience working in Aboriginal heritage, language preservation and maintenance, traditional ecological/education and native title research.
Kado is also Chair of the Wakamurru Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC, the PBC for Manta Rirrtinya Native Title Determination and the former founding CEO of the Goldfields Land and Sea Council. He also operates a number of businesses including an Aboriginal art business, a Sandalwood company, and a heritage consultancy business. He is a long-time activist for bi-lingual and two-way education, environmental and cultural heritage protection, and promoting alternative community-based enterprises, especially through his PhD university partnerships for research on Wealth in First Nations.
Heron Loban
Dr Heron Loban is a Torres Strait Islander woman with family ties to Mabuyag and Boigu Islands. She has practised on Thursday Island as a solicitor in native title at the Torres Strait Regional Authority, and in general practice at the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Legal Service. Heron is currently the Principal Legal Officer at Gur A Baradharaw Kod Torres Strait Sea and Land Council, and Co-Chair of the First Nations Cultural Heritage Protection Alliance.
In addition to her work as a lawyer, Heron has a long, established career as a legal academic having worked in law, criminology and humanities in universities across Australia. Her research background in First Nations justice issues, and knowledge of the First Nations Australian context, is grounded in her years spent living and working in and with First Nations people in regional and remote communities across Australia.
Heron has sat on numerous public and private advisory groups and boards of Indigenous not-for-profit corporations including as Chairperson and Company Director, Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network Ltd (ICAN); Deputy Chairperson, Centre for Appropriate Technology (CfAT); Chief Minister (NT) Appointed Director of Desert Knowledge Australia; and, Ministerially (Cth) Appointed Member of 2011–12 Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee (RTIRC).
