Australian Working Group on Place Names UN presentation

Written By First Languages Australia

Representatives of the Australian Working Group on Place Names are presenting a paper, ‘Amplifying First Nations languages in Australia’, to the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names as part of a meeting in New York this month.

The paper has been written with First Languages Australia and draws heavily on our place names position papers calling on governments at all levels to:

  • Empower Indigenous authorities to enact policies and processes that appropriately recognise traditional names.

  • Acknowledge the fundamental connection between peoples, language and land by including traditional place name initiatives as national, state, territory and local government priorities.

  • Work with local Indigenous authorities to reinstate the original names and respect the authority of custodian governance structures in this regard.

  • Provide funds to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander governance structures to undertake landscape-wide name activities.

First Languages Australia https://www.firstlanguages.org.au
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