Tiwi elders fear Santos pipeline risks committing an undersea Juukan Gorge-style disaster

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Six elders are urging the Australian government to intervene before the gas company Santos puts a pipeline through sacred sites that are believed to be in the ocean. Their legal battle highlights the growing importance of underwater cultural heritage management.

Transcript

00:00 On the Tiwi Islands, elders sing to their ancestors.

00:07 The women are worried about a gas pipeline that could go through undersea burial grounds.

00:16 We care because it's part of our culture, our beliefs and how we connect to the sea.

00:25 The Tiwi Islands looked very different 20 to 15,000 years ago.

00:30 As the Ice Age finished, glaciers melted, potentially submerging significant sites.

00:36 I was told by the elders of the existence of burial grounds on sea country.

00:41 But proving this before Santos' pipeline goes in will be difficult,

00:45 with possible locations 50 metres below sea level.

00:50 Jonathan Benjamin is part of a team that pulled stone artefacts out of waters near Western Australia.

00:56 You'd be surprised how many archaeological sites actually do survive inundation

01:01 and then are well preserved for thousands of years.

01:03 There could be cultural sites in the waters all around Australia.

01:07 And while some people are calling for better protection for them,

01:10 their very existence and recognition could pose a problem for all sorts of offshore development.

01:16 Santos says its own cultural heritage surveys found no evidence of anything significant,

01:22 but these locals are still worried.

01:25 It's not good what is happening, what they're trying to do, because it hurts us and our belief.

01:35 It's sort of disrespecting our heritage and our ancestors.

01:40 I went in the maruringam and I died.

01:43 Regardless of what happens, it's clear the connection between the past and the present is continuing.

01:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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