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The UN cultural organization this week announces its choice of sites that obtain the status of World Heritage.
The United Nations Cultural Organization has added an aboriginal site remote with a million sculptures which potentially date 50,000 years to its World Heritage list.
Located in the Burrup peninsula in Western Australia, Murujuga houses the Mardudura people, who declared himself “delighted” when UNESCO gave the old site a coveted place on its list on Friday.
“These sculptures are what our ancestors have left here to learn and keep their knowledge and keep our culture prosper through these sacred sites,” said Mark Clifton, member of the Aboriginal delegation meeting with UNESCO representatives in Paris.
Environmental and Aboriginal organizations argue that the presence of mining groups issuing industrial programs has already caused damage to the old site.
Benjamin Smith, specialist in rock art at the University of Australia-Western, said that Murujuga was “perhaps the most important rock art site in the world”, but that mining activity provoked that rock art “is broken down”.
“We should take care of it,” he said.
The Australian company Woodside Energy, which operates an industrial complex in the region, told the AFP news agency that it had recognized Murujuga as “one of the most cultural landscapes in Australia” and that it took “proactive measures … to ensure that we manage our impacts”.
The head of the delegation, Raelene Cooper, said that the UNESCO’s list had sent “a clear signal to the Australian government and to Woodside that things must change”.
Making UNESCO’s heritage list does not trigger protection for a site in itself, but can help national governments take measures.
African heritage stimulated
The Mandara Mandara mountains of Cameroon and the Malawi Mont Mulawi were also added to the last edition of the UNESCO World Heritage List.
UNESCO’s director general, Audrey Azoulay, presented Africa as a priority during her two terms, although the continent remains under-represented.
The Bid-Biy Mandara Mountains DIY landscape, in the far north of Cameroon, consists of archaeological sites, probably created between the 12th and 17th centuries.
Mount Mulanje of Malawi, in the south of the country, is considered a sacred place inhabited by gods, minds and ancestors.
UNESCO also envisages the applications of two other African countries, namely the forests of Gola Tiwai in Sierra Leone and the biosphere reserve of the Bijagos archipelago in Guinea-Bissau.
On Friday, UNESCO also listed three notorious sites of Cambodian torture and execution used by the Khmer Rouge diet to perpetrate the genocide 50 years ago.
