Why we are banning tourists from climbing Uluru

November 8, 2017

climbing Uluru will be banned from 2019

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The Uluru-Kata Tjuta Nation­al Park board of man­age­ment has announced that tour­ists will be banned from climb­ing Uluru from 2019. Uluru, formerly known in Eng­lish as Ayer­’s Rock, is an icon­ic sand­stone rock form­a­tion that rises dra­mat­ic­ally from the flat plains of Aus­trali­a’s red centre. Kata Tjuta (“many heads”), 25 km to the west as the crow flies, is also known as the Olgas. 

Climb­ing Uluru has always been dis­cour­aged by the park’s tra­di­tion­al own­ers, the Anan­gu people, how­ever tour­ists con­tin­ue to climb the rock on a daily basis. Sammy Wilson, Chair of the Park Board of Man­age­ment, explains for The Con­ver­sa­tion why his people have decided to ban the climb.

The Uluru-Kata Tjuta Nation­al Park Board has announced tour­ists will be banned from climb­ing Uluru, an activ­ity long con­sidered dis­respect­ful by the region’s tra­di­tion­al owners.

Anan­gu have always held this place of Law. Oth­er people have found it hard to under­stand what this means; they can’t see it. But for Anan­gu it is indis­put­able. So this climb issue has been widely dis­cussed, includ­ing by many who have long since passed away. More recently people have come togeth­er to focus on it again and it was decided to take it to a broad­er group of Anan­gu. They declared it should be closed. This is a sac­red place restric­ted by law.

It’s not just at board meet­ings that we dis­cussed this but it’s been talked about over many a camp fire, out hunt­ing, wait­ing for the kangaroo to cook, they’ve always talked about it.

The climb is a men’s sac­red area. The men have closed it. It has cul­tur­al sig­ni­fic­ance that includes cer­tain restric­tions and so this is as much as we can say. If you ask, you know they can’t tell you, except to say it has been closed for cul­tur­al reasons.

Climbing Uluru with a chain

Tour­ists have pre­vi­ously used a chain to climb Uluru, but from 2019 the climb will be banned. Source: The Conversation.

What does this mean? You know it can be hard to under­stand – what is cul­tur­al law? Which one are you talk­ing about? It exists; both his­tor­ic­ally and today. Tjukur­pa includes everything: the trees; grasses; land­forms; hills; rocks and all.

You have to think in these terms; to under­stand that coun­try has mean­ing that needs to be respec­ted. If you walk around here you will learn this and under­stand. If you climb you won’t be able to. What are you learn­ing? This is why Tjukur­pa exists. We can’t con­trol everything you do but if you walk around here you will start to under­stand us.

Some people, in tour­ism and gov­ern­ment for example, might have been say­ing we need to keep it open but it’s not their law that lies in this land. It is an extremely import­ant place, not a play­ground or theme park like Dis­ney­land. We want you to come, hear us and learn. We’ve been think­ing about this for a very long time.

We work on the prin­ciple of mutu­al oblig­a­tion, of work­ing togeth­er, but this requires under­stand­ing and accept­ance of the climb clos­ure because of the sac­red nature of this place. If I travel to anoth­er coun­try and there is a sac­red site, an area of restric­ted access, I don’t enter or climb it, I respect it. It is the same here for Anan­gu. We wel­come tour­ists here. We are not stop­ping tour­ism, just this activity.

On tour with us, tour­ists talk about it. They often ask why people are still climb­ing and I always reply, ‘things might change…’ They ask, ‘why don’t they close it?’ I feel for them and usu­ally say that change is com­ing. Some people come want­ing to climb and per­haps do so before com­ing on tour with us. They then wish they hadn’t and want to know why it hasn’t already been closed. But it’s about teach­ing people to under­stand and come to their own real­isa­tion about it. We’re always hav­ing these con­ver­sa­tions with tourists.

And now that the major­ity of people have come to under­stand us, if you don’t mind, we will close it! After much dis­cus­sion, we’ve decided it’s time.

The ban on climbing Uluru need not be a turn off for tourists because there is lots to do and discover at ground level

There is plenty to do and dis­cov­er at ground level, prefer­ably with an Anan­gu guide. Pic­ture by Cemendtaur (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wiki­me­dia.

Vis­it­ors needn’t be wor­ry­ing there will be noth­ing for them with the climb closed because there is so much else besides that in the cul­ture here. It’s not just inside the park and if we have the right sup­port to take tour­ists out­side it will bene­fit every­one. People might say there is no one liv­ing on the home­lands but they hold good poten­tial for tour­ists. We want sup­port from the gov­ern­ment to hear what we need and help us. We have a lot to offer in this coun­try. There are so many oth­er smal­ler places that still have cul­tur­al sig­ni­fic­ance that we can share pub­licly. So instead of tour­ists feel­ing dis­ap­poin­ted in what they can do here they can exper­i­ence the home­lands with Anan­gu and really enjoy the fact that they learnt so much more about culture.

White­fel­las see the land in eco­nom­ic terms where Anan­gu see it as Tjukur­pa. If the Tjukur­pa is gone so is everything. We want to hold on to our cul­ture. If we don’t it could dis­ap­pear com­pletely in anoth­er 50 or 100 years. We have to be strong to avoid this. The gov­ern­ment needs to respect what we are say­ing about our cul­ture in the same way it expects us to abide by its laws. It doesn’t work with money. Money is tran­si­ent, it comes and goes like the wind. In Anan­gu cul­ture Tjukur­pa is ever lasting.

Years ago, Anan­gu went to work on the sta­tions [live­stock ranches]. They were work­ing for sta­tion man­agers who wanted to mark the bound­ar­ies of their prop­er­ties at a time when Anan­gu were liv­ing in the bush. Anan­gu were the ones who built the fences as bound­ar­ies to accord with white­fella law, to pro­tect anim­al stock. It was Anan­gu labour that cre­ated the very thing that excluded them from their own land. This was impossible to fathom for us! Why have we built these fences that lock us out? I was the one that did it! I built a fence for that per­son who doesn’t want any­thing to do with me and now I’m on the out­side. This is just one example of our situ­ation today.

Traditional custodians have been quietly discouraging people from climbing Uluru for a long time

Sammy Wilson (right), Chair of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Nation­al Park, at the 30th Anniversary Hand­back Fest­iv­al in 2015. Source: AIATSIS.

You might also think of it in terms of what would hap­pen if I star­ted mak­ing and selling coca cola here without a license. The coca cola com­pany would prob­ably not allow it and I’d have to close it in order to avoid being taken to court. This is some­thing sim­il­ar for Anangu.

A long time ago they brought one of the boulders from the Devil’s Marbles to Alice Springs. From the time they brought it down Anan­gu kept try­ing to tell people it shouldn’t have been brought here. They talked about it for so long that many people had passed away in the mean­time before their con­cerns were under­stood and it was returned. People had finally under­stood the Anan­gu perspective.

That’s the same as here. We’ve talked about it for so long and now we’re able to close the climb. It’s about pro­tec­tion through com­bin­ing two sys­tems, the gov­ern­ment and Anan­gu. Anan­gu have a gov­ern­ing sys­tem but the white­fella gov­ern­ment has been act­ing in a way that breaches our laws. Please don’t break our law, we need to be united and respect both.

Over the years Anan­gu have felt a sense of intim­id­a­tion, as if someone is hold­ing a gun to our heads to keep it open. Please don’t hold us to ransom … This decision is for both Anan­gu and non-Anan­gu togeth­er to feel proud about; to real­ise, of course it’s the right thing to close the ‘play­ground’.

The land has law and cul­ture. We wel­come tour­ists here. Clos­ing the climb is not some­thing to feel upset about but a cause for celebration.

Let’s come togeth­er; let’s close it together.

Read this again in Pit­jant­jat­jara, the lan­guage of the Anan­gu.

The ConversationThis art­icle by Sammy Wilson, Chair of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Nation­al Park Board of Man­age­ment, was ori­gin­ally pub­lished on The Con­ver­sa­tion (CC BY-ND 4.0; the “GT” Blog used dif­fer­ent images and added a little more inform­a­tion to the intro­duct­ory paragraphs).

Fea­tured image: Dawn view of Uluru with Kata Tjuta in the back­ground. Enhanced image by Leonard G. via Wiki­me­dia.

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