Right now the oldest and largest heritage site in the world – containing rock carvings six times the age of the Pyramids – is being dismantled and destroyed (see this recent media story for more). We couldn’t stop the Taliban from destroying the Buddhas of Bamiyan, but we do have the power to protect our own Indigenous heritage from further ruin. And we’ve nearly succeeded in protecting this key international site – which includes some of the world’s earliest known images of a human face and the now-extinct Tasmanian Tiger – once and for all. With your voice behind the win-win solution, the Federal Environment Minister has committed to heritage listing the Burrup and the Dampier islands by the middle of the year – and the state government has withdrawn their long-standing opposition.
A meaningful heritage listing must put Commonwealth funds towards effectively protecting all the remaining carvings. The management plan must ensure safe visitation and allow for world-class scientific study over the long term: all in close consultation with local Indigenous groups as well as the broader community. As you read this, Woodside Petroleum is bulldozing clusters of priceless rock carvings for a new gas plant that could be re-negotiated by the state government to bare, flattened land only 500m away from the current site. Woodside and its corporate partners should listen to their own shareholders, many of whom lodged their discomfort over the new plant’s location at Woodside’s recent Annual General Meeting in Perth. GetUp’s peition was also presented at the AGM.
WATCH THE VIDEO HERE!
Speak up now and we will personally take your message to the Environment Minister before he makes his final decisions. Call for the win-win solution that supports a growing economy while respectfully preserving Australia’s priceless Indigenous heritage.
Sign the petition today:
“I support an inclusive management plan for the Dampier Precinct that heritage-lists all of the remaining rock carvings, and balances the aim of future economic development with the duty to care for cultural treasures, that once destroyed, can never be replaced.
Please move all future industry to any one of the other suitable, nearby sites, as called for by a diverse range of leaders from business, science, conservation, Indigenous affairs and politics.”
New target: 25,000!
20,533 have joined this campaign – help us get to 25,000.