It has been 20 years since Indigenous Australians were granted the right to fish and hunt for traditional foods and experts say that landmark High Court ruling remains just as significant today.

Key points: Indigenous groups in Queensland's Lower Gulf region collect data on crocodiles and liaise with CSIRO scientists

Indigenous groups in Queensland's Lower Gulf region collect data on crocodiles and liaise with CSIRO scientists An anthropology expert says the approach to Indigenous hunting and customs often conflicts with Western perspectives

An anthropology expert says the approach to Indigenous hunting and customs often conflicts with Western perspectives A Torres Strait Island law lecturer says there needs to be greater understanding of Indigenous communities' approach to sustainability

Lower Gulf of Carpentaria community leader Murrandoo Yanner was prosecuted by police for taking and killing two crocodiles in 1994, at a time when traditional owners were opposing the Century Mine.

"We were appealing to the mining Wardens' Court, Environmental Courts, opposing Century, where they tried to shortcut environmental or administrative legal processes," Mr Yanner said.

"We wanted a stake in the wealth that was being taken out of our region."

He said some police were targeting a number of Gulf leaders and were raiding people's homes, including his.

"They opened the freezer and they saw all these buckets of meat and two crocodile skins and then they grabbed the crocodile skins and they said, 'You're in trouble mate, wait here'."

Mr Yanner says the High Court decision was a big win for all Aboriginal people. ( Supplied: Murrandoo Yanner )

He said officers later realised he had crocodile meat in his freezer and charged him with contravening Queensland's Fauna Act, which prohibited a person from taking fauna without a licence.

"I was looking at, I dunno a $60,000 fine or three years jail," Mr Yanner said.

But a Mount Isa magistrate dismissed the charge and ruled that Murrandoo Yanner was acting in accordance with the Commonwealth's Native Title Act.

The Queensland Government then appealed to the State Supreme Court and won, arguing that the Act did not apply to fishing and hunting rights.

But Mr Yanner appealed to the High Court — and won.

"That changed the law in Australia to basically say the government can't regulate against our hunting and fishing, our native title rights in terms of conservation laws and restrictions."

Mr Yanner's win in the High Court changed the law for First Nations people. ( Supplied: Murrandoo Yanner )

Mr Yanner said it was a big win for all Aboriginal people, especially those who had similar legal proceedings underway at the time.

"It always feels good to have a win ... the losses normally outnumber the wins, so whenever you have a win you appreciate it."

Questions of sustainability

Professor Trigger gave his expert opinion during the case in the Mount Isa Magistrates Court. ( Supplied: David Trigger )

University of Queensland Emeritus Professor of Anthropology David Trigger provided an expert report on the Ganggalida people's rights to take bush species during the proceedings in the Mount Isa Magistrates Court.

Professor Trigger said the case was still significant 20 years later because it represented the co-existence of laws designed to protect native species and the native title rights to hunt and kill bush animals, which have long been the traditional ways and customs of Indigenous Australians.

He said the Indigenous view that taking bush foods was normal and sustainable may conflict with Western science perspectives that a species was under threat when it comes to the scale of hunting.

"Usually conservationists don't include hunting bush animals in their vision for the future," Professor Trigger said.

"On the other hand, Aboriginal people — for whom taking bush resources has always been part of certainly their parents' lives, their grandparents' lives and it's culturally very significant — this issue hasn't gone away and that's because there are two trends in the law and wider society."

Call for greater understanding of traditional ways

Mr Yanner says local Indigenous groups monitor crocodile populations. ( Supplied: Murrandoo Yanner )

Mr Yanner said over the last decade, Indigenous groups in the Lower Gulf have been collecting baseline data on crocodile numbers, sexes and sizes while also working with scientists from the CSIRO to monitor populations in rivers and creeks.

Dr Heron Loban, a Torres Strait Islander and Griffith University Law School senior lecturer, highlighted the importance of discussions between conservationists and traditional owners about protecting animals and the environment.

"We have really important spiritual connections to animals, to places, to plants, as was illustrated in the case, in terms of totems for example.

"So there's a very different attitude and approach to protecting the environment, which is really connected very closely to us as people that live on the land and people that live with the sea.

"That's perhaps something that also isn't really understood in terms of our approach to sustainability in this sort of contemporary context."

She said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were making a strong contribution towards conservation which was not recognised.

"I think there needs to be a greater level of communication to government, to policy makers but also to the wider communities."

Yanner v Eaton: Helpful teaching tool

Dr Loban teaches the Yanner v Eaton case to final year law students. ( Supplied: Heron Loban )

Dr Loban said she used the Yanner v Eaton case to educate final year law students about customs and traditional practices.

"It covers a whole range of legal issues which is important looking at the Racial Discrimination Act, looking at the Constitution, looking at the Native Title Act and then looking at our fauna conservation legislation here in Queensland," Dr Loban said.

"It also highlights some of the important issues around our traditions and our practices around hunting as well and how, a misunderstanding that happens — really at quite a small level, in this case the Magistrates Court — can escalate through Supreme Court processes all the way to the High Court.

"That's something that young lawyers need to think about whether these kind of issues could be better understood and we could avoid costly, time consuming, expensive litigation.

"Yanner v Eaton sort of sits in that group of cases that really made a mark on the way that native title and native title rights would be interpreted and should be interpreted going forward."