CALM proposal
Robert G. Bednarik auraweb@hotmail.com
Destruction of rock art at Dampier
| The Draft Management Plan for the Proposed Burrup Peninsula Conservation Reserve is available at http://www.naturebase.net/national_parks/management/burrup_peninsula_cr_management.html for public comment. Submissions close on 11 September 2006, and can be made by mail, e-mail or Fax.
This Plan involves building a $5.5 million visitor centre and extensive tourist facilities in the pristine Conzinc Bay, a 10 km road and a network of walk paths and camping sites, essentially destroying the northern part of the Burrup (Murujuga). If implemented, this plan will destroy numerous rock art and stone arrangement sites, and expose the rest of the monument to uncontrolled visitation. This plan must be resisted strongly, if what is left of the Dampier monument is to survive: 57% of the land area is induustrial lease, 43% is controlled by CALM/DEC and supposed to be protected by the state, which now wants to turn this sacred site into a theme park. PLEASE MAKE A SUBMISSION CONDEMNING THIS PROPOSAL BEFORE 11 SEPTEMBER! Below is the full text of the submission made by IFRAO, please feel free to use any of the points made in it, or design you own, but please help us prevent this cultural heritage management disaster. Robert G. Bednarik Dampier Campaign Proposed Burrup Peninsula Conservation Reserve, Draft Management Plan 2006-2016 Comments by the International Federation of Rock Art Organisations (IFRAO) Preamble This appears to have been developed from various previous working papers, including the 2002 Dampier Archipelago Island Nature Reserves and Section 5(g) Reserves Management Plan, Issues Paper and the 2003 Management Plan for the Burrup Peninsula Conservation Reserve proposal. There have been numerous earlier attempts, over many years, to present some kind of cohesive plan for managing the Dampier Archipelago, or part thereof (Vinnicombe 2002). They all have a number of things in common: most of their recommendations were never implemented (very fortunately, in many cases); they were significantly inadequate; they were prepared by people who have little comprehension of how to manage a world-class cultural monument; and they collectively show that in the State of Western Australia, cultural heritage management remains woefully inadequate. In fact it is fair to say, by reference to the rest of Australia and the rest of the developed world, that the level of management major WA cultural heritage sites experience is such that they would be better off not being ‘managed’ at all. There are many examples showing the shortcomings of CRM (cultural resource management) in WA. The Pilbara is not the only world-class rock art region on WA territory, the paintings of the Kimberley, too, are world famous. They have to be managed and protected by wealthy philanthropists who buy the land the rock art is situated on in order to protect the sites, because the state government is unable or unwilling to do so. There are several pre-British rock inscriptions in WA, the locations of which have to be kept secret from government agencies because two of them have been destroyed in the past, one by the then Director of the Geological Survey. The Pilbara has for over 40 years been the target of massive industrial development. It houses the world’s largest concentration of petroglyphs, yet no endeavour has ever been made to create a comprehensive inventory of this national treasure for the specific purpose of ensuring that development and rock art can coexist. This indicates the extent of the failure of the state to meet its sovereign obligations, and the present situation in the Dampier Archipelago is simply symptomatic of an endemic problem affecting all CRM in WA. So is this draft management plan. It indicates that nothing has changed, that the appointed manager of the land lacks the means and the will that have created well-managed reserves such as those of Uluru or Kakadu. The fact that such reserves do exist indicates that the necessary CRM expertise is readily available in Australia. Indeed, CRM experts from throughout the world have travelled to Kakadu National Park to study the practices and facilities there specifically for the purpose of copying them in their home countries. Sadly, the producers of this draft management plan have made no attempt of availing themselves of the expertise readily available within the country. In the following we will focus on CRM issues. The most glaring omission in this document is the lack of any reference to CRM standards. These are governed in Australia by the Burra Charter, as well as by various Unesco standards, such as the relevant ICOMOS Code of Ethics and internationally by such instruments as the Venice Charter. It is obvious that the producers of this draft have never heard of such standards, because these are contradicted throughout the text. We do not wish to sound unduly harsh, but if the appointed managers of the land lack the most basic requirements to discharge their duties, this condition needs to be explained. More than half the clauses of the Burra Charter are contradicted by proposals in this draft plan. This includes some very crucial components of the Charter, such as Articles 8, 15.2 and 22.1. Where, for instance, is there any attempt to comply with the three clauses of Article 26? Article 30 cannot be complied with by CALM/DEC even if it tried. In essence, this draft is a proposal concerned primarily with public access and recreation (p. 29). Yet the purpose of the Dampier Sacred Precinct is not public access and recreation, it is that of any other sacred space. There is probably no place on Murujuga (‘Burrup’) from where sacred sites are not visible, therefore every change of the fabric of the land impacts on the sacred precinct. Throughout the island there are thousands of sites of petroglyph concentrations, and there are thousands of stone arrangements. The latter are not even detailed in this draft plan, probably because the producers are not aware of them. The same applies to a range of other sites, such as tharlu sites and other sacred places. To suggest that such a severely deficient document should be the basis of a comprehensive management plan for the world’s largest rock art site and Australia’s largest cultural and most sacred monument is preposterous. Specific objections 12.1: It is stated correctly that the Ngarda-ngarli have had limited access to Murujuga ‘for the past several decades’ and that the people with intimate knowledge have all long passed on. Actually, there was no indigenous access whatsoever from about 1869 to May 1981, i.e. for more than a century. The region’s last men of high levels of traditional knowledge passed on by 1970 or shortly thereafter. Seven of them were extensively interviewed during the 1960s (Bednarik 2006). It should be noted that the land management practices discussed here are contributing to the loss of this traditional knowledge by excluding such sources. It is proposed to ‘identify culturally restricted sites and prohibit public access where necessary’. But if there has been over a century of cultural dislocation, how will the restricted sites be identified? 12.2: By far the most serious CRM error in this document is the proposal to ‘develop’ a hitherto relatively inaccessible part of Murujuga and place a ‘visitor hub’ at Conzinc Bay, with a $5.5 million visitor centre. There are to be extensive visitor facilities (parking bays, picnic shelters, toilets) in two locations, and a string of camping sites along Searipple Passage. Worse still, there are to be established walk tracks all over northern Murujuga. The sealed road is to be extended almost 10 km purely for tourist access. No consideration seems to have been given to any of the consequences: 1. This will lead to uncontrolled visitation of most sites supposed to be protected by CALM/DEC. Already there is significant site vandalism of up to 71% of site content destroyed (massacre site stone arrangement). 2. The establishment of walk tracks raises the public liability issues. Many visitors will be elderly, and this is very rugged terrain with unstable formations. Who will pay for the rescue of dehydrated or injured tourists? 3. The establishment of a massive visitor centre at a pristine beach will not only encroach significantly on the sacred precinct, it will totally destroy the ambience and intrinsic value of a stunning site. It is itself an act of cultural barbarism. 4. The draft plan fails to disclose how many rock art and other cultural sites will be destroyed as a result of the construction of 10 km of road, parking areas, a large visitor site, other visitor facilities, a cafe/restaurant, shops, camp sites and many kilometres of walk tracks. How many sacred sites will be destroyed, otherwise impacted upon, or debased for this entirely unnecessary ‘development’? 5. Most of this area is sacred. It is most disappointing to see that nothing seems sacred to CALM/DEC. 14.6, ‘Overnight stays’: the proposal to set up several camping sites in northern Murujuga is seriously flawed. It is generally acknowledged that there is a great shortage of accommodation in Dampier and Karratha, and this is set to become ever more acute. To encourage camping in such a sensitive place is irresponsible and entirely unnecessary. Moreover, how would one prevent resident workers from using such sites? Overnight accommodation should only be provided at Dampier and Karratha. If there is not enough accommodation in Karratha for this tourism, as indeed there is not, it is the managers’ responsibility to ensure that there is adequate tourist accommodation provided before encouraging a significant increase in tourism. Alternative The greatest asset of the management plan of Kakadu (and any other successfully run reserve of this kind) is the strategy of sacrificing a very small number of perhaps already compromised sites to the visitors. In the case of Kakadu, three sites out of the approximately 10,000 were sacrificed to tourism, to thus protect all others from unwanted visitation. This strategy has been completely ignored in the draft plan, which exposes nearly all the remaining sites on Murujuga to tourism. This is the worst-possible scenario: already 57% of the land area is to be sacrificed to industry and related development, now most of the remaining 43% or 5000 hectares is to be sacrificed to tourism. The only protected rock art in the entire Dampier Archipelago is, and has been for decades, the rock art located on the Dampier Salt Lease. Here we have a private company protecting the heritage effectively, while CALM/DEC wishes to establish a Disneyland-style theme park on the land it controls. We recommend that CALM/DEC consult Dampier Salt to find out how they protect the heritage sites on their lease. The Dampier precinct will be inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List eventually. This will mean that visitor numbers will rise to about 300,000 per year, as per previous experience. It would be prudent to prepare accordingly. Currently, three rock art sites are visited by tourists on a regular basis: · Deep Gorge · King Bay South Site · Panel near Woodside, falsely named ‘climbing men panel’ All three are compromised and currently have no protection whatsoever. They are the prime candidates for sacrifice to tourism, with the focus to be on the first-named. This site can be developed readily, with facilities to be modelled on rock art sites in central and north Queensland, Northern Territory, NSW and Victoria. Existing installations and the logic behind them need to be studied by the relevant personnel before attempting the Dampier project. At present the walk through Deep Gorge is precarious and accidents will occur without proper management facilities. There needs to be extensive interpretative signage, a visitors’ book, and a carefully designed strategy of managing visitors. The relevant expertise for this is available from the NPWS. The road, parking area and tracks need to be upgraded. There is a large flat area in front of the range, suitable for a visitor centre and a ranger’s office. Alternatively the visitor centre could be located along the road, at a point soon after entering the island from the causeway, perhaps near the T-intersection. Alternatively it could be located at Hearson Cove, a site already compromised scenically. The poor vehicular track to the north-western part of the island needs to be blocked to all traffic rather than converted into a tourist road, and the plan of transferring visitor traffic to northern Murujuga must be abandoned. The initial massacre site (which is not where the plaque is located, but a few hundred metres to the east) should be excised from the Hamersley lease and protected. The current vandalism at the so-called massacre site is particularly disturbing, and rather than adding insult to injury by opening up sacred areas to tourism, CALM/DEC could facilitate reconciliation by developing the actual massacre site fittingly and with the appropriate decorum. It is not too much to ask that those who fell defending their homeland be honoured properly. Summary Although this draft plan duly acknowledges that ‘all people’ (of the world) have a stake in the preservation of the Dampier precinct, it specifically excludes from consideration any representative advocate of humanity’s rights in this. For instance, Unesco or ICOMOS seem of no relevance, nor does the representative world body of rock art specialists, IFRAO. In fact, this document considers ‘humanity’s’ role in respect of the Dampier precinct to be that of tourists (people of economic relevance). The reason given for not developing Deep Gorge is the preference ‘for a site closer to the visitor centre’ (p. 54). In other words, this entire proposal is built around the visitor centre, its central focus, rather than around the heritage sites. The ideology of this proposal is about profit, not about protection. It is about a plan into which its subject, the heritage, has to fit, rather than the other way round. It therefore totally contradicts the Burra Charter in every possible respect. It needs to be drawn to the attention of ICOMOS Australia, of the various heritage agencies, and of Unesco, that the responsible land manager has been placed in control of 43% of the largest cultural monument of Australia, after the remaining 57% is to be sacrificed to industry, and that CALM/DEC intends to sacrifice the rest to uncontrolled tourism ensuring the eventual complete destruction of this national icon. If this plan of destruction is implemented, we will facilitate the expression of international outrage. The International Federation of Rock Art Organisations (IFRAO) Robert G. Bednarik Convener of IFRAO 22 August 2006 REFERENCES Bednarik, R. G. 2006. Australian Apocalypse: the story of Australia’s greatest cultural monument. AURA Occasional Publication 14, Australian Rock Art Research Association Inc., Melbourne. Vinnicombe, P. 2002. Petroglyphs of the Dampier Archipelago: background to development and descriptive analysis. Rock Art Research 19: 3-27. |
Home-page of the campaign to save the Dampier rock art
Home-page of the Australian Rock Art Research Association, Inc.
Home-page of the International Federation of Rock Art Organisations
The Draft Mangaement Plan can be downloaded from here, PDF, 3.5 MB
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