Crunch time looms in Paris for Murujuga rock art World Heritage bid

An intense international lobbying fight between the Commonwealth and traditional owners will culminate on Friday as a UNESCO committee decides whether to grant the Burrup Peninsula’s Murujuga cultural landscape World Heritage status.

The committee’s decision in Paris will conclude a long-running bid to secure World Heritage-listing for the ancient Aboriginal petroglyphs on the Pilbara coast near Karratha.

Murujuga Custodian Raelene Cooper.Credit: Bianca Hall

The bid was dealt a major blow in May, when the International Council on Monuments and Sites recommended it go back to the Australian government to address concerns about the impact of nearby industrialisation and emissions.

The draft decision will be debated at about 3pm Paris time on Friday (9pm AWST). It will include ICOMOS’ recommendations calling on the Commonwealth to prevent further industrialisation on the peninsula and to remove all emissions impacting the rock art.

This masthead understands Australian government representatives are pushing an amendment to the committee’s draft decision removing suggested conditions to stop nearby industrial activity near Murujuga, which remains a major hurdle for it to gain heritage status.

Murujuga traditional custodian and Save Our Songlines leader Raelene Cooper opposes that amendment. Cooper is also in Paris this week to lobby for action on industrial emissions near the site.

“We are deeply concerned that the amendment being lobbied for by the Australian government will dramatically weaken these critical recommendations,” she said.

“It is essential that the final UNESCO decision requires a moratorium on any extensions or expansions of industry located on Murujuga.

“It needs to have a decommissioning and rehabilitation plan, and to strengthen the management of Murujuga by traditional custodians by guaranteeing resources so industry funding is not relied upon.”

The WA and federal governments, Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, and opponents of continued industrialisation on the peninsula all want World Heritage status, but are at bitter odds over whether industrial activity is harming the rock art.

The push for heritage listing was complicated by Woodside’s plans to extend its North West Shelf operations until 2070, and fertiliser producer Perdaman’s continued expansion on the peninsula.

Environment Minister Murray WattCredit: The Sydney Morning Herald

After provisionally approving the Woodside extension subject to still-secret conditions on emissions, Environment Minister Murray Watt has said stopping all industry on the peninsula is too big an ask, and scientific evidence to date suggests rock art and industry can coexist.

Watt has previously said the ICOMOS recommendations were not based in fact or science, and were “heavily influenced by claims made in the media and correspondence from non-government organisations.”

Watt, WA Environment Minister Matthew Swinbourne and MAC have all travelled to Paris to lobby for the listing without extra conditions.

Cooper’s camp described it as a “David and Goliath” battle. The small group has tried to snatch as much time as possible to press their case with member countries during committee breaks.

In a last-ditch effort, Murujuga traditional custodian and Ngarluma woman Samantha Walker wrote to the UNESCO committee this week calling for it to restrain industrial activity.

“World Heritage must not be reduced to a symbolic gesture while industrial emissions continue to damage the very values that make Murujuga so extraordinary,” she said.

“It is unfathomable to imagine the French government approving industrial pollution at the site of the 17,000-year-old Lascaux cave paintings.”

A spokeswoman for Watt confirmed Australia was seeking an amendment to the draft decision to secure heritage listing.

She said the listing would deliver a further layer of protection of Murujuga under federal environmental laws, including the activation of World Heritage value provisions “for any future actions which may have a significant impact on these values or attributes”.

Watt’s lobbying began as soon as the ICOMOS recommendations were made public, and he pressed the issue during his visit to the World Oceans Conference in Nice in June.

The committee is composed of diplomats from 21 countries, including Argentina, India, Italy, Kenya, Vietnam, and Korea.

New science complicates bid

Complicating the week is the release of a new study, outside of state and federal-backed science, that suggests current rates of pollution on the Burrup Peninsula are eroding rock surfaces.

The state government recently released Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Program reports, suggesting emissions on the peninsula did impact the rock art, but that most of that damage came from a small power station that operated nearby from the 1970s to the 1990s.

That conclusion has been challenged by the release of a study by Bonn University geologist Jolam Neumann, who simulated current weather and rain conditions on the Burrup on rocks from the region and found that they did impact the surface of the rocks.

UWA rock art expert Ben Smith said he hoped the report was taken seriously by regulators and the UNESCO committee.

“This entirely independent study has reconfirmed, if you take the spin off the MRAMP report and look at what its actual hard science is saying, it’s confirming that the rock is damaged [by current emissions],” he said.

A Department of Water and Environmental Regulation spokesman said MRAMP scientists reviewed the Bonn University report and found it simulated acidic rain conditions “not occurring at Murujuga”.

A Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation spokeswoman dismissed the study’s findings, saying the MRAMP report found atmospheric conditions was alkaline, not acidic.

“From all the research that has been undertaken by independent scientific experts, any risk to the rock art is manageable. This is why it’s critical to maintain this type of monitoring,” she said.

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