Murujuga Cultural Landscape
In 2025, Murujuga was inscribed on the World Heritage List as a Cultural Landscape. Notably the inscription clearly acknowledges and inscribes the Lore and presence of Ngarda-Ngarli, the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the landscape. Inscription identifies it as living culture expressed in creative artwork, stories and spirituality for Ngarda-Ngarli who have used and cared for the land and sea for at least 50,000 years.
Unlike Purnululu, the ambition and decision to nominate Murujuga to the World Heritage list was driven by the Traditional Owners who actively worked on it and lobbied for decades. Key elements in the submission were thorough involvement and decision-making on every aspect of the nomination process, a key role in the strategic management of the property and ensuring Aboriginal cultural values and perspectives were clearly written into the Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (which is a key part of the nomination) thereby ensuring that is legally protected under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) (EPBC Act).
The FPIC process was embedded in every step and established early to ensure that the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation community, Circle of Elders and Board of Directors developed and approved all aspects of the nomination. Significantly the Traditional Owners and Custodians spent a lot of time discussing and reframing the World Heritage Convention language, which was very Euro-centric, to identify culturally appropriate approaches that were appropriate for them. This was an important step in ensuring that the nomination was culturally relevant and presented the property according to Aboriginal perspectives.
They also met representatives from the international organisations ICCROM, IUCN, ICOMOS who would eventually assess the nomination, and explained in detail their way of describing cultural heritage and how it reflects Aboriginal cultural law and 50,000 years of land management and traditional and practice.
As with other parts of Western Australia, mining interests continue to be a pressure point for the Murujuga Cultural Landscape and specific recommendations have been made regarding the management of industry presence as part of the inscription.