Following a long-running legal battle, the Federal Court has ruled Lorella Springs' tourism permit invalid.
Native title holders are claiming a "hard fought win", despite the court rejecting a number of their key arguments.
The permit has been set aside, with the Pastoral Land Board ordered to reassess the application "according to law".
Northern Territory native title holders are claiming a "hard fought win" after a Federal Court judge ruled a tourism permit for Lorella Springs Wilderness Park is invalid, and ordered the Pastoral Land Board to reassess the application.
For about two decades, the owners of Lorella Springs, a 400,000-hectare outback cattle station located about 1,000 kilometres from Darwin, ran a significant tourism business with accommodation, a bar, fishing, swimming and helicopter tours.
The station, about 2.5 times the size of London, is also home to protected sacred, burial and ceremony sites.
But the station has been closed to most tourists since January 2023. Only a select number of guided tours have been allowed to visit, with the owners citing "bureaucracy" becoming "too much" to sustain operations.
In 2022, owners Marie and Rhett Walker lodged an application for a "farm tourism operations" permit. Their application said Aboriginal sites would "be avoided from all tourism activity".
The owners also applied to extract water from Rosie Creek.