Cultural Heritage

Saving the Rock Art of the Blue Mountains

Saving the Rock Art of the Blue Mountains

There are thousands of sites of pigment art, stencils and engravings across the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, known only to a handful of Indigenous people, bushwalkers and archaeologists. The summer bushfires exposed these artefacts and the race is now on to save them from neglect.

Murujuga World Heritage nomination

Murujuga World Heritage nomination

A decades-long campaign to secure a World Heritage listing for Australia’s largest collection of rock art has finally been taken to UNESCO. The Murujuga cultural landscape in Western Australia, containing over a million petroglyphs, has now made it to the Tentative World Heritage list.

Grave fears for rock art sites after fires

 Grave fears for rock art sites after fires

An important rock art site, thought to be at least 500 years old, has been discovered after being irretrievably damaged by bushfire, with grave fears held for thousands of other sites. Some of the art at the site was known but not fully documented. Fire also destroyed a nearby undocumented site.

Climate change impact on world heritage sites

Climate change impact on world heritage sites

Google has launched a new tool that allows anyone to monitor the impacts of climate change at five of the world's most precious cultural sites. The project, "Heritage on the Edge," uses 3D mapping and other tools to capture images of World Heritage Sites that can be used for conservation.

How Aboriginal people experience fire crisis

How Aboriginal people experience fire crisis

The experience of Aboriginal peoples in the fire crisis is vastly different to non-Indigenous peoples. Colonial legacies of eradication, dispossession, assimilation and racism continue to impact the lived realities of Aboriginal peoples. These factors compound the trauma of these fires.

It's miraculous: owners say cultural burning saved their property

It's miraculous: owners say cultural burning saved their property

Three weeks ago, Phil Sheppard and other owners were forced to evacuate their property, helplessly watching online as the Gospers Mountain fire converged with the Little L Complex fire and appeared to engulf the property. To his amazement, when he returned two days later, traversing the long gravel driveway on foot after fallen trees blocked vehicle access, most structures remained perfectly intact. Owners say the property was saved by the traditional Indigenous technique of cultural burning conducted on their land three years ago.