Decolonial Philosophy in Action: The Plumwood Mountain Landback

This article narrates the decision-making and processes behind the return of a parcel of land in New South Wales, Australia, to a Local Aboriginal Land Council. The 120-hectare property, ‘Plumwood Mountain,’ was once owned by the environmental philosopher Val Plumwood. Since Val’s death in 2008, Plumwood Inc., a not-for-profit organization and committee, became custodians of Plumwood Mountain. After a complex and slow bureaucratic legal process, in September 2024, Plumwood Inc. made the Batemans Bay Local Aboriginal Land Council the new owners of Plumwood Mountain in a historic landback. This article is authored by the members of Plumwood Inc. at the time of the handover of land title and narrates our perspectives on the process. We argue that mapping our experiences as a committee undertaking a landback is valuable, since agreements that return stolen land to First Nations peoples are always undertaken within complex webs of inter-relations and within the context of a country that has a chequered history of land restitution and rights. Drawing on an ecofeminist and decolonial framework, we hope that revealing the processes of thinking and action may be useful to others working or contemplating working in this space.