Heritage listing possible for rock art

Aboriginal rock art believed to be thousands of years old could soon receive world heritage listing following an assessment by the Australian Heritage Council.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke instructed the AHC to undertake an emergency assessment of Dampier Archipelago and Burrup Peninsula last March after a senate motion.

In September the AHC provided Mr Burke with draft reports on the area with the final assessments to follow next month.

The draft reports reveal Dampier Archipelago and Burrup Peninsula contain one of the richest concentrations of rock art in Australia.

Former president of the Australian Rock Art Association Ken Mulvaney said the Dampier Archipelago area was likely to contain the longest continual production of rock art anywhere in the world.

“The art itself is documenting cultural changes through time as well as environmental changes,” he said.

Mr Mulvaney said world heritage listing included protective measures and would persuade the State Government to pursue maintaining the rock art rather than further industrialising the area.

He said only a small percentage of the land had been officially surveyed for industrial developments, leaving much of it uncharted.

“There have been some surveys of other parcels of land by people like me and I can assure you that the (Dampier) Archipelago is likely the richest area anywhere in the world for petroglyphs,” he said.

“There is more rock art there than anywhere else; we are talking anywhere between 500,000 and one million individual carvings.

In some of the valleys alone we know there is 10,000 to 20,000 images.”

Mr Mulvaney said one of the incredible features of the area’s rock art was the diversity of subjects.