A special sitting of the Federal Court in Boulia yesterday approved a consent determination giving the Pitta Pitta non-exclusive rights to 30,000 square kilometres of land, which includes Boulia, Cloncurry, Diamantina and Winton shire councils.

The ruling gives the Pitta Pitta people the non-exclusive native title rights to be present on their land, travel, hunt, fish, gather, conduct ceremonies and maintain places of importance and significance and teach in accordance with traditional laws and customs.

"I have not come here today to give anything to the Pitta Pitta people, rather I have come to recognise, on behalf of all Australians that the Pitta Pitta people are the traditional owners of this land pursuant to the traditional laws and customs which have been there since ancient times. I now recognise that traditional ownership," Justice John Dowsett said.

The Pitta Pitta people nominated six applicants, chosen from various family groups to represent the native title aspirations of the wider claim group.

Consent on the determination was reached with the Queensland government, the four local governments, Ergon Energy, two mining companies and 15 pastoralists.

Pitta Pitta Elder and representative of the claim group, Uncle Neville Aplin said "I feel real good because my Mum was born up the river from here, and it's just something that I didn't think we were going to get but all my kids, we're bush people and we want to go back fishing and we want to go back camping.

"We still have the way of hunting out in the bush so native title means a lot."

Pitta Pitta applicant Carmel Belford said she would say thank you to the Elders, if they were there.

"I want to honour them now," she said.

"It's because of what they've been through. They've been amazing to us, through their hard work. That's something that I want to impart on to the younger generations to respect and to remember those who have gone before us."

Pitta Pitta's barrister Tony McAvoy said the resilience and strength of those Pitta Pitta ancestors had been carried forward to the Pitta Pitta people who filled the Court and remained connected to these lands and waters.