The Guardian 9 April, 2008
Burrup faces more danger
Ken Boase
Traditional owners on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia are urging Federal Heritage Minister Peter Garrett to visit the region to get a first-hand briefing of their concerns over future industrial development and the protection of ancient rock art.
New concerns have been raised by the Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation over plans by gas giant Chevron to develop an onshore gas processing plant to service the Wheatfield gas deposit in the Indian Ocean, north-west of Karratha.
Former Federal Heritage Minister Malcolm Turnbull agreed last year to include the Dampier Archipelago on the National Heritage Register, but the WA government wants the federal government to hand back heritage responsibilities to the state.
Ngarluma chairwoman Jill Churnside said a management plan for the region was "clearly a plan to legitimise the practice of rock art removal in a National Heritage-listed area at the whim of industry".
The WA government has prepared a Draft Management Arrangement for the Dampier Archipelago, with plans to release the document for public comment at the end of March. According to critics, it could be used as a benchmark for heritage protection in all states.
Friends of Australian Rock Art (FARA) spokesman Robin Chapple said he was invited to look at the draft agreement, which included an area larger than that covered by the National Heritage listing.
Mr Chapple said the wording of the agreement gave too much emphasis to the environment as a whole rather than concentrating on Aboriginal heritage protection and the protection of rock art in particular.
"Repeated focus on ‘matters of environmental significance’, etc highlights the fact the authors are more comfortable with an environmental/scientific model than one which addresses questions of cultural heritage", Mr Chapple said.
"There is disproportionate space and emphasis given to material on environmental values, which are insignificant compared with the area’s heritage values.
"There are vague and nebulous references to ‘joint management arrangements’ with traditional owners, but no evidence whatsoever to demonstrate that the authors have engaged with or have any familiarity with the best models for Indigenous joint management. "An important issue would be whether traditional owners have a majority on the Park management board (as at Uluru and Kakadu). There’s no detail as to what role or powers traditional owners might have apart from purely tokenistic and symbolic ones.
"There are some reference to ‘honorary Indigenous park wardens’, but no details on how many there would be.
"There is no evidence of any Indigenous input into the document, and no specific detail on methodology for consultations with Aboriginal stakeholders."
Mr Chapple said the draft plan also attempted to minimise the importance of the Burrup rock art by stating that the "engravings are representative of the styles found throughout the Pilbara".
And he said there were no serious attempts by the document’s authors to demonstrate any meaningful consultations with local traditional owners and other Aboriginal stakeholders.
"The largest cultural inaccuracy in the whole document is repeated references to ‘the Ngarda-ngarli’, apparently on the completely false assumption that this is a generic term used by local Aboriginal people to refer to themselves", Mr Chapple said.
"Ngarda-ngarli is a Yindjibarndi word meaning ‘black men’, and, unlike terms like anangu, is gender specific.
"This name was chosen by the Port Hedland Aboriginal men as the name for the local ATSIC region, and it was objected to on the grounds that it excluded women.
"There is no basis for the term being used as a generic term to refer to local Aboriginal people. This gives a fair idea of the level of cultural expertise of the people involved in working on the document."
Mr Chapple said the Draft Management Plan was also in conflict with several pieces of legislation already in force, for example the Conservation and Land Management (CALM) Act, which did not allow for joint management arrangements.
He said that the references to an Aboriginal heritage management plan being planned for a "later date" also demonstrated a lack of diligence on that issue, with practically no detail given on what the plan would involve.
FARA and other groups lobbying for the protection of the Burrup rock art want an Indigenous heritage regime that provides the same level of protection as that applied to non-Indigenous heritage.
Koori Mail