The Australian government has secured the support of at least eight members of the World Heritage committee as it lobbies to quell concerns about the impacts of industrial emissions on Indigenous rock art at Murujuga and have the Western Australia site inscribed on the World Heritage list.
The federal environment minister, Murray Watt, has been in Paris for the meeting since Wednesday, alongside a delegation from the WA state government and the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, which has led the nomination.
The committee is due to make a decision on the inscription of the Murujuga Cultural Landscape on Friday night or early Saturday, Australia time. Indigenous groups have been pushing for the nomination for two decades.
UN advisers, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), has said the site is deserving of world heritage status but in May recommended the committee refer the nomination back to Australia over concerns the site is “extremely vulnerable to industrial pollution”.
The site, covering almost 100,000 hectares in the WA Pilbara region, has more than a million pieces of rock art, some almost 50,000 years old.
ICOMOS has described it as “an exceptional example of human artistic achievement” and an “extraordinary cultural landscape of global significance”.
ICOMOS said it wanted Australia to remove “degrading acidic emissions” and stop any further industrial development, before a nomination could be approved. A “draft decision” reflecting the ICOMOS recommendations, has gone before the committee.
An amendment, published overnight by committee member Kenya and co-sponsored by Senegal, Zambia, Rwanda, Ukraine, South Korea, Japan and Qatar, scrubbed much of the ICOMOS advice and asked the committee to immediately inscribe Murujuga.
The amendment, which could be revised, rejected or accepted by the committee, says Australia should ensure regulations “protect the petroglyphs of the Murujuga Cultural Landscape from the impacts of emissions.”
The government has claimed ICOMS’s recommendation was based on “factual inaccuracies” and has been using the results of a state government-backed monitoring program, the work of about 50 scientists, to say there is no ongoing risks to the rock art from emissions.
Some scientists have challenged the conclusions of the monitoring program, saying the rock art is at risk.
Woodside’s Karratha gas plant is a main source of air emissions at the site, including nitrous oxides and sulphur dioxide, which some campaigners and scientists claim are slowly eroding the rock art.
Watt has provisionally approved a life extension of the gas plant to 2070, but his department is still in talks with Woodside over conditions that relate to the air emissions.
A delegation in Paris of the Save our Songlines campaign group, which includes former Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation chair Raelene Cooper, said on Friday that most of the backers of the amendment had business ties to Woodside, including South Korea and Japan which buy Woodside’s LNG.
Cooper, a Mardathoonera woman, said the amendment would “dramatically weaken” the ICOMOS advice and would remove a proposed block of further industrial expansion and a recommendation to “remove the source of harmful emissions.”
She said: “Despite repeated invitations, Murray Watt has never been to Murujuga. None of the ambassadors sponsoring the government’s amendment have ever been to Murujuga.
“How dare they ignore the concerns about Burrup Hub industry of the traditional custodians of Murujuga. We have unbroken connection to Murujuga.
“Today, the Australian government will try to rewrite Unesco’s recommendations, rewrite the rock art science, and rewrite our history.”
A government spokesperson said: “While the Australian Government is seeking an amendment to the draft decision to inscribe Murujuga on the World Heritage List at the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee, any proposed amendments will be finalised by and be proposed by member/s of the World Heritage Committee.”
The statement said Murujuga was protected “through a comprehensive suite of measures” including traditional customary practices and federal and state laws.
“World Heritage listing of the Murujuga cultural landscape will also deliver a further layer of protection via Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, through the addition of World Heritage values and attributes that must be considered, immediately upon inscription, for any future actions which may have a significant impact on these values or attributes.”
