A remote Western Australia peninsula used continuously by Aboriginal people for about 50,000 years and which is home to more than a million rock art paintings has been nominated as a world heritage site.
The nomination of the Murujuga cultural area comes amid longstanding concerns about the impacts of multi-billion dollar industrial development at the Burrup peninsula, which is home to rock art, known as petroglyphs.
Critics said the nomination, decades in the making and led by the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation and backed by the WA and federal governments, was “deeply hypocritical” because of the governments’ support for massive gas, ammonia and fertiliser projects.
Environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, announced the nomination on Friday at the site, saying Murujuga was a “natural wonder of the world” and “a place for all Australians to reflect on years of continuous living culture”.
But while welcoming the nomination, some groups said it had come too late and was incompatible with the industrialisation of the area.
The government said the nomination, covering more than 100,000 hectares of land and sea, includes acknowledgment of the densest known-concentration of hunter-gatherer petroglyphs anywhere in the world.
Peter Jeffries, chief executive of the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, said the Ngarda-Ngarli people had hoped for world heritage listing for more than two decades “and for our traditional knowledge and lore to be at the centre of decision-making, governance and management of this land and sea country”.
Inclusion on the world heritage list, which will be considered by the world heritage committee no earlier than mid-2024, would support his people to “share knowledge, protect our sacred places and ensure that we are in the best position to respond to the needs of country”, Jeffries said.
“We see inscription on the world heritage list as a mechanism to support what we have always done – share knowledge, protect our sacred places and ensure that we are in the best position to respond to the needs of country.”
Reece Whitby, the WA environment minister, said the nomination reaffirmed a “joint commitment to protecting such a culturally and spiritually significant area”.
Raelene Cooper, a Mardudhunera woman of the Save Our Songlines traditional owner group, said they strongly supported the nomination “but we are under no illusions that this will protect Murujuga from industrial damage due to Woodside’s expanding Burrup Hub”.
In 2018, a leaked briefing note suggested the world heritage nomination could be delayed to allow approvals for industrial developments.
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Cooper said support for the nomination by the WA government and some of the industrial players, including gas company Woodside and fertiliser producer Perdaman, was “deeply hypocritical while they are at the same time pushing ahead with projects that will destroy the very cultural values the listing is supposed to protect”.
An assessment of the risks to the site from industrial development is still ongoing under section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.
Campaign group Friends of Australian Rock Art (Fara) said industrial expansion could derail the world heritage application at the final hurdle.
Judith Hugo, co-convener of Fara, said the group backed calls for a moratorium on further development until the nomination had been assessed.
She said: “The WA and commonwealth governments can’t have it both ways: approving destructive new industry on the Burrup while pretending to support world heritage listing.
“Instead of approving new industry, the government could be supporting Aboriginal cultural tourism by showing it is serious about the world heritage process”.