The Beeliar Wetlands are located in the southwest portion of the metropolitan area of Perth, Western Australia.

To this day there are sixteen Aboriginal campsites within the metropolitan area, predominately located on "the banks of North and Bibra Lakes".

Until the Swan River colony was founded on their boodjar (country) in 1829, each moort (clan) lived within their own ‘run’, following bidi (foodlines) from the coast to the chain of wetlands and across the sandy, woodland plain to the escarpment thirty kilometres inland.

[2] Ancient stories left by the Nyungar clan state that the city's many connected wetlands are represented by a rainbow serpent, referred to as the Waakal.

“The Waakal creates the shape of the Boodjar, over, under, and through the earth and gives foundation to the meaning of life in Cockburn.”[2] In Australia, Aboriginal history stretches “well over 40,000 years”.

[11][12] As of 18 March 2017[update] a group of volunteers have begun spreading mulch – from the woodchipped original trees – as the first steps toward restoring the cleared area.

“The plan has met with years of protests by local government, environmentalists and residents who are concerned about the economic, social and environmental issues associated with the development.”[14] A large issue people had was the damage caused by a plan to build the highway, Roe 8, the damage that building this highway would cause would take decades to restore.

"Work on the first stage of the $1.9 billion Perth Freight Link, an extension of Roe Highway across the wetlands, stopped just 24 hours after the Liberal-National alliance lost power in a landslide election defeat.”[15] After being made to halt work “Opponents to the federal-backed Perth Freight Link have committed to persevere and take their case to the High Court after the WA government won an appeal to reverse a decision that invalidated environmental approval for the $1.9 billion project.”[16] The plan for the highway is to cut through the spiritual lands of the Beeliar wetlands but conservationists prepared to resist in order to stop the first stage of work.

The case that halted work on the highway is referred to as "Jacob v save Beeliar Wetlands": “Martin CJ's judgment in Save Beeliar Wetlands v Jacob created a significant degree of uncertainty for many state departments and statutory bodies.

The primary implication being that published policies were potentially mandatory relevant considerations in their administrative decision-making processes.