Respectful use of Indigenous knowledge, and recognition of Indigenous rights and knowledge systems will lead to positive change, the long-awaited report has found.

Minister for Environment Tanya Plibersek opened a speech addressing the report at the National Press Club on Tuesday by pledging to hear the lessons of Indigenous people.

"First Nations peoples have the oldest continuing cultures on earth and are the world's most successful environmental custodians," she said.

"They have managed land and sea country for 65,000 years. As Minister for the Environment and Water, I'm committed to learning from their remarkable example."

The damning report, kept from the public by the previous government, paints a grim picture of species decline driven by the destruction of the environment a trend its authors found could be brought to a halt through proper consultation with Indigenous Australians.

"Indigenous people's connection to their country is a deep cultural and spiritual bond. Country for Indigenous people is the source of life, identity and culture and the health of Country and people are inextricably linked," the report states.

"Continuing to expand the role of Indigenous land and sea management ... will be fundamental to improvements in the state of the environment."

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The report identified the ACT for involving Indigenous people in planned burns, acknowledging that funding gaps and policy barriers meant cultural burning remained underused elsewhere.

Adding to the capital's Murumbung Ranger Program, the ACT has allocated additional resources in the 2022-23 ACT budget to "improve the integration of Ngunnawal knowledge into land planning and management".

Bradley Bell was appointed the ACT's first Ngunnawal water policy officer in 2021, providing the environment directorate an Indigenous perspective on the management of water resources.

Mr Bell said preserving the health of the environment is a responsibility Indigenous people have honored for thousands of years.

"Country to us is our land, our waterways, our plants and our animals, it's even the air that we breathe and the stars above us," he said.

"It's one big lifecycle and we're all an intricate part of that lifecycle.

"When you start taking parts of that lifecycle away, the cogs just don't work as they should."

Mr Bell said the health of the environment was part of Indigenous people's identity and spirituality, and watching the accelerated extinction of species was a source of pain.

He said the opportunity to collaborate with ACT government provided both him and his community a voice in regard to land management.

"I still have a lot to learn from a mainstream perspective," he said.

"But then I still have a lot to offer from a cultural perspective."

Authors of the State of the Environment report pointed to a continued push from Indigenous people to participate in environmental management and "recovery back to health".

The report found the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was not fulfilling its objective in relation to the roles of Indigenous Australians by failing to protect and conserve biodiversity, failing to promote the respectful inclusion of their knowledge and not meeting the aspirations of Traditional Owners for managing their land.

"Indigenous knowledge and views are diluted in the formal provision of advice to decision-makers," the report found.

"This reflects an overall culture of tokenism and symbolism, rather than one of genuine inclusion of Indigenous Australians."