Dampier listed!

Some of the over one million petroglyphs at Dampier.

The Dampier Rock Art Precinct has been listed on the National Heritage List of Australia. The declaration was made by the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, The Hon Malcolm Bligh Turnball MP, on 3 July 2007.

The nomination was made by Robert G. Bednarik on 22 March 2004 and was strenuously opposed by the State Government of Western Australia and the Woodside Energy company for the next three years. It was supported by the National Trust and the local Indigenous communities (who submitted identical nominations a few months later), and over the next years by the many parties and individuals who supported the campaign to save the Dampier rock art.

The listing of Dampier on National Heritage is the first step to listing the monument, which is the greatest cultural heritage site of Australia and the largest concentration of rock art in the world, on the World Heritage List. The Dampier Campaign will now focus on securing that listing, and on legal actions to pursue the rock art vandals in Western Australia and to improve cultural heritage management practices in that state.

Full details of the National Heritage listing can be found here.