Murujuga World Heritage Site Nomination - media coverage

Description

For University of WA professor of rock art Benjamin Smith, Murujuga is the most important rock art site in theworld due to the number of images – more than one million – and the 40,000 years of continuous productionthey represent, up to the 1800s when images of European ships were made.
Smith is concerned that pollution from the adjacent industry will damage the thin coloured layer on the rocksof Murujuga that is engraved with the rock art images.
If the layer called a patina, as thin as one-thousandth of a millimetre, dissolves or fades the art disappears.
His concern is that nitrous and sulphur oxides in the form of dust and acid rain is settling on the rocks anddestroying the patina.
Smith said to date governments had favoured promotion of industry over preservation of heritage.
“World heritage nomination is highly signifi cant, it means that a country is committing to manage a site andlook after the universal values of that site in perpetuity,” he said.
“You need a much tougher regulatory system that requires the cutting of emissions by Woodside, Yara andother emitters up on the Burrup.”