PLOT and Country

Country and cultural knowledge

PLOT acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands and waters it records, and pays respect to their Elders past and present. Every place on the record is Country, cared for long before any of the sources PLOT reads were written.

How PLOT treats cultural knowledge

From Traditional Owners themselves. Cultural knowledge, Traditional Owner names for places and waters, and statements about Country appear only from Traditional Owner organisations' own published statements, and only after a person at PLOT has checked them against the source.
Never inferred. PLOT doesn't work out whose Country a place is from maps, other sources or AI. Until a Traditional Owner organisation's own statement is on the record, a page says nothing about it rather than guess.
Withheld when it should be. Material that needs cultural authority to share is never made public, and its existence isn't hinted at. Sensitive locations, such as those of threatened species, are withheld the same way.
Credited and correctable. What PLOT shows names who said it and where. If something here is wrong, or shouldn't be here, it can be corrected or withdrawn, and the change is kept on the record.

Whose Country

The AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia (coming)

PLOT will show the AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia here. It shows the general location of larger groupings of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, which may include clans, dialects or individual languages. It isn't meant to be exact, its boundaries aren't fixed, and it isn't suitable for native title or other land claims.

The map is the work of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), and showing it here needs their permission. PLOT will ask before it appears.

Traditional Owner organisations for places on the record

Each place's Traditional Owner organisations, from their own published statements (coming)

None are on the record yet. Where a Traditional Owner organisation's own statement is added and checked, its place pages will name it and link to it.

How a Traditional Owner organisation can contribute

Point PLOT to your own published statement about Country, a place's name or how it should be described. A person at PLOT checks it against your publication, then shows it on the place's page credited to you, with a link back.
Ask for anything to be corrected or withdrawn. The change is made and kept on the record, as every correction is.
Nothing is taken without you. PLOT doesn't gather Traditional Owner names or knowledge from other sites or databases.

A contact address for Traditional Owner organisations (coming)