Traditional owners depart to Paris to hear decision on Murujuga Cultural Landscape

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A delegation of Pilbara traditional owners has departed for Paris, where they will hear a United Nations decision on the World Heritage listing of the Murujuga Cultural Landscape. The federal government nominated the area near Karratha in 2023, the culmination of a decades-long campaign to formally recognise its ancient Aboriginal rock art.

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00:00Bound for Paris, these traditional custodians are hoping to bring home a World Heritage

00:06listing.

00:07We have every confidence that we will go there and we will come home with an inscription,

00:13full inscription for the Muradjuga country.

00:16Delegates from the Muradjuga Aboriginal Corporation have left Karafa en route to the French capital

00:21for the 47th session of the United Nations World Heritage Committee, grateful for the

00:27chance to see their country from the sky.

00:29Seeing it from an aerial view in Muradjuga means hip bones sticking out, so to be able

00:33to see that from the plain is something so beautiful.

00:37The almost 100,000 hectares nominated for World Heritage are dotted with Aboriginal rock art.

00:43It's one of the densest collections of its type on the planet.

00:46Each engraving carries practical and spiritual meaning handed down tens of thousands of years.

00:52We have symbols that have been marked around the borough that tells us we are in a sacred

00:57place, a special place.

00:58Some of these petroglyphs mark ceremonial sites.

01:01It's an increased site.

01:02So if we run low on EMU, we do ceremony.

01:06Next year, big mob EMU.

01:08And even the presence of extinct animals.

01:11Megaforna, they call it.

01:12He still got a song line today.

01:14Belong to us.

01:16Even though he's gone.

01:17We're still seeing this one.

01:19Armed with this knowledge, Muradjuga traditional custodians plan to make their case in Paris,

01:24although it could be in vain.

01:26The UNESCO draft decision made public in May indicated the decision would be deferred and

01:30the nomination sent back to the federal government due to concerns about nearby industrial emissions.

01:35Joining the Muradjuga Aboriginal Corporation in France will be representatives from the Office

01:40of Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt.

01:42He's copped criticism from both climate groups and other traditional owners for backing the

01:46bid for World Heritage while also approving nearby industrial projects like a 40-year extension

01:52for Woodside's Northwest Shelf Gas Plant.

01:54Now, that approval is still subject to negotiation around things like cultural heritage protections

01:59and emissions monitoring, but a win at UNESCO could be seen as vindicating the Australian government's

02:05management of both industry and environment on Muradjuga country.

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