The Maralinga Tjarutja are the Indigenous Australian people who traditionally inhabit the remote western areas of South Australia. They are a Southern Pitjantjatjara people.

The lands of the Maralinga Tjarutja bear their own name. These lands, in South Australia's remote west, comprise Maralinga Tjaruta, one of the four local government areas of South Australia classified an Aboriginal Council (AC).

The Maralinga people had been moved from their lands in the 1950s to allow British nuclear tests. The Maralinga Tjarutja native title land was handed back to the Maralinga people in January 1985 under legislation passed by both houses of the South Australian Parliament in December 1984 and proclaimed in January 1985. Maralinga people resettled on the land in 1995 and named the main community Oak Valley Community.

Maralinga Tjarutja Council

The Maralinga Tjarutja Council is an incorporated body constituted by the traditional owners (Yalata and Maralinga people) to administer the lands granted to the under the Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act 1984 (SA). The head office is at: 43 McKenzie Street, Ceduna. Dr Archie Barton AM was the Administrator until 2006, and was involved in the campaign in 1982-1984 on behalf of the Yalata and Maralinga people for land rights to the Maralinga Tjarutja lands.

The Maralinga Tjarutja and the Pila Nguru (or Spinifex people) also jointly own and administer the 25,000 sq/km Mamungari Conservation Park.

A part of the land surveyed and known as Section 400 remains occupied by the Crown through a provision of the Act mentioned above, for up to 50 years. This land includes the area of land occupied by the Maralinga Township and the areas in which actual atomic tests were carried out.

See also

• Maralinga, South Australia
• British nuclear tests at Maralinga
• Downwinders

References

• Emma Pedler "Returning the Maralinga Tjarutja Lands". Statewide Afternoons, ABC South Australia. .
• ATNS
• Maralinga Tjarutja Council at Agreements, Treaties and Negotiated Settlements (ATNS) project at Indigenous Studies Program, The University of Melbourne
• Southern Pitjantjatjara People
• SAMLISA Steering Committee
• Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement Inc
• Anangu Pitjantjatjara
• Oak Valley (Maralinga) Inc.
• Maralinga Piling Trust (1994 - )
• Strategy for Aboriginal Managed Lands in South Australia (2000 - )
• Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act 1984 (SA)
• Hansard extract from South Australian House of Assembly, 15 October 2003, of Second Reading Speech on co-management of the unnamed conservation park