Pademelons, possums, eagles, wallabies and all sorts of native animals frolic among the fauna that remains relatively untouched for over a century.

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The land is splendid, undoubtedly, and it carries with it an air of significance. The sound of a nearby bee or the rustle of a fallen oak leaf is amplified by the overawing silence that comes with its isolation.

When you are there every movement feels intentional. Every tree feels swollen with knowledge and each bird flying by seems to notice your presence.

The land has been owned by the Elders Council of Tasmania Aboriginal Corporation since 1994.

Before then it was owned by Janace Symons. In 1994, Ms Symons handed the title of the land over to the newly formed Elders Council.

She said she felt it was the right thing to do after Tasmania's dark history with Tasmanian Aboriginals.

She said when she was confronted with a choice of what to do with the land, she felt it was time some to recognise what owning the land meant - and that it meant retaining it from the Aboriginal people it was taken from upon British invasion.

While it was through a series of meetings and lawyerly communications the land was officially bestowed to the Elder's Council, the final signing over was the culmination of a long process marked by a journey of reconciliation by Ms Symons.

Ms Symons said she handed the land over to a select group of Tasmanian Aboriginal Elders, a group of women, who she had become acquainted with and who she felt would represent the best interest of Tasmanian Aboriginals going forward.

"I wanted it to be in safe hands," she said.

"It seemed a safe, good and honourable way of doing it."

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When she handed it over she was asked what she would want in return: "nothing but to be able to go back on the land, walk on the land and be on the land" she said.

It is said the land was proposed to be turned into an elders respite area, but that never came to fruition and the land stayed as it was, virtually untouched for almost 20 years.

In 2011 Ms Symons asked the Elder's Council if she could move back onto the land which was allowed.

Shortly after she was joined by her partner and Tasmanian Aboriginal man Robin West.

The pair lived there happily until 2016 when Rabin says she was handed an eviction notice.

The Elder's Council was to sell the land.

Ms Symons was shocked by the news. She said she had handed the land over in perpetuity, into what she thought was "safe hands" and with an expectation it would not be sold.

"I didn't give it back to be part of the system I was trying to get it away from," she said.

After a legal challenge, Ms Symons was allowed to stay on the land and the sale was thwarted.

Then, early this year, another eviction notice appeared for Ms Symons and Mr West on the post that marks the entrance to the property.

"You are to vacate the property ... and remove all your belongings on or before 30 April 2021," it said.

The process has been since been drawn out but Ms Symons and Mr West have been given until June 23 this year to vacate the property.

The news of eviction came as a dagger to the heart for Mr West who was under the pretence he and Ms Symons could live there until they died.

Yumba had become a place of great importance for Mr West who, after a long journey to find where he belonged, found a place where he felt at peace.

Mr West said Yumba was one of the few places he had felt a connection with the land from which he came and was free enough to express himself.

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For Mr West the idea of the land as a respite area was exactly what he needed .

"It took a couple of years for everything to unfold because there was just myself and the bush," he said.

"I needed a space to resolve for myself before I die. I came here to die actually."

Mr West said the point he continues to return to is that the land, while transferred into the name of the Elders Council, was not given to a group rather to every Aboriginal person.

"Everyone who's an Aborigine has the right to come here," he said.

"Some of my family are very happy that I live here. They say 'you're using the land ... that's good'.

The sale of the land, and eviction of Ms Symons and Mr West, has driven a wedge between some members of the Elders Council and the Council's board.

The Elders Council itself is made up of 70 elders from across Tasmania.

The majority of the member list is typically reserved and quiet but some believe the sale is emblematic of a larger issue.

Aunty Dawn Blazely is one of the founding members of the Council. She said it was formed in 1994 in part so Yumba could actually be signed over.

Aunty Dawn is furious about the land sale. She said the sale did not "represent what the Council was established for in the first place".

She said she was never informed about the land sale and other Elders on the membership list of the Council had not heard about it either.

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Though Aunty Dawn said she had been worried about decisions made by the Council for some time.

"They don't support the whole of Tasmania and they don't represent all of the members," she said.

Fellow member Dyan Summers said the decision to sell the land had potential to have ongoing consequences.

She said, being a member, she was worried about the responsibility for the sale that would bare down on the membership, and how it would be received for the following generations.

"It's not a clack and white issue, it's about what's right," she said.

"This land should remain an asset for the community."

When contacted the Elders Council of Tasmania Aboriginal Corporation declined to comment on the sale.

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