Indigenous Australians have thrived on the continent of Australia for at least 65,000 years. This history demonstrates a relationality to which few cultures maintain or link their cultural practices. For Indigenous Australians, everything is connected. No individual person exists in isolation.The invasion and colonisation of Australia had a colossal impact on the Australian continent. The land has been transformed and damaged in the name of profit, progress and nation-building. Successive governments have supported an extraction-based economy that focuses on stripping resources from the land and ignoring Indigenous Australians’ knowledge about how to care for Country. Despite this, Indigenous Australians continue to hold intricate, sacred and nuanced knowledges of Country and respect the way Country has nurtured and supported our ways of knowing, being and doing for millennia.

Australia’s First Nations peoples are a collection of multiple language groups; they are the sovereign peoples of the lands and waterways of their countries, which are now confined within the boundaries of the modern-day colonial nation-state of Australia. Torres Strait Islanders (Islanders) are a collection of First Nations peoples from the region commonly known as the Torres Strait, which for Islanders is increasingly being reclaimed and renown as Zenadth Kes. The assertion of using the local name instead of the colonial name is an exercise of sovereignty. The reclaiming of places through knowing their local name is an important part of truth-telling and decolonising Country. This chapter invites you to learn more about Zenadth Kes and the people who belong to it. Specifically, in keeping with cultural safety, this chapter aims to highlight the limitations of the colonial perceptions of Islanders. These imaginations of Islanders have historically informed what opportunities were afforded to them. This includes equitable access to health inclusive of social and cultural determinants of health, compared with that of non-Indigenous Australians.Today, Islanders reside all over Australia.

This chapter provides a contextual overview of Torres Strait Islander’s health and wellbeing. It begins by discussing the location and pre-colonisation history of the Torres Strait Islands and their peoples and notes that there is a shift back towards calling the region by its local name, Zenadth Kes. It considers Torres Strait Islanders connections to Country, including the sea, and Kin, and their belonging within tribes and clans. It then discusses Torres Strait Islanders’ perspectives of health and wellbeing both before and after invasion and colonisation and makes suggestions for culturally safe practice that incorporates Torres Strait Islanders’ history. It outlines the current provision of primary health care in the Torres Strait and looks at how this can holistically incorporate traditional medicine practices. The final section of the chapter considers the threat of climate change and its impact on Torres Strait Islanders’ physical and spiritual connection to their Country and consequently their health and wellbeing.