Our mountains belong to all of us. The Right to Climb them and bask in their views that inspire awe and wonder is as old as the human genome. This long-established cultural tradition is under threat by a small group of bureaucrats determined to impose their way on the rest of the world. It is right to Climb because we have the Right to climb. If you don’t exercise your rights you lose them. Don’t let petty nanny state bureaucrats take them away.
Revealed: Plans to ban climbers from Mt Warning forever
News
Hikers would be permanently banned from climbing Mt Warning between the Gold Coast and Byron Bay under an Uluru-like ban to be brought in next year, according to revelations in government documents. Katrina Beikoff
The distinctive peak, which sits in Wollumbin National Park in the top north east corner of NSW within easy travelling distance from the Gold Coast and Brisbane is a major tourist drawcard as the first place in mainland Australia to see the sunrise.
However, it has been controversially closed to tourists since March due to COVID-19 crowd limit restrictions.
Now, documents obtained under Freedom of Information by the pro-access Right to Climb group have revealed the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service plans to ban climbers permanently from Mt Warning.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Right to Climb spokesperson Marc Hendrickx published the FOI documents suggesting the park would not be re-opened.
The emails and documents detailed a “final Wollumbin Closure Event” for 25 November next year.
The final closure would follow a “deconstruction plan” that included removing summit lookouts.
Far from re-opening the park as hoped in May, NPWS intended to maintain its current off-limits state, Hendrickx said.
Wollumbin attracts around 100,000 tourists a year, many including the world-renowned sunrise hike in their south-east Queensland tourism itinerary.
The future of climbing Wollumbin, along with Mt Beerwah on the Sunshine Coast, has been fiercely debated since the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Board of Management ordered climbers off Uluru in October 2019.
The Wollumbin park closure would affect the entire park that included both the Summit trail and the shorter Lyrebird Walk, Hendrickx said .
“Wollumbin National Park is one of our Nation’s true natural jewels and it is being treated as a political football by bureaucrats and Aboriginal groups,” Hendrickx said.
“They (NPWS) should hang their heads in shame at what they have done to this outstanding natural attraction that is owned by all Australians.”
Hendrickx, a geologist based at Berowra near Sydney, has been conducting an FOI campaign against the closure of the park and last Friday published an open letter to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian arguing against shutting tourists out of “an iconic experience of the natural world and the Australian environment.”
Right to Climb also continues to campaign against the hiking trail closure at Uluru, listing 10 reasons to climb both Uluru and Mt Warning on its website. Hendrickx is the author of a book called A Guide to Climbing Ayers Rock.
Not just Uluru: Traditional owners are fighting to ban climbing on other sites
Indigenous groups continue to push back against public access to sacred sites across the country in an effort to preserve areas of historical and spiritual importance.
The final climbers descended from Uluru in October 2019 Source: AAP
The closing of Uluru to climbers was met with cheers and tears from traditional owners – but across Australia, tourists continue to trek to sacred sites, despite calls from Indigenous people to stay away.
Hundreds of tourists flocked to the rock last week,
determined to climb it before it closed for good.
Uluru is officially free of climbers. But many other sites are still walked over and climbed up, despite the disapproval of traditional owners. Source: AAP
Uluru’s traditional owners, the Anangu people, campaigned for decades to stop the flow of climbers, arguing the rock was sacred to them and not just a tourist attraction.
“It’s about time the rock had a rest, rather than [the] tapping of shoes all the time,” former Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Board chair, Donald Fraser said.
“That is a sensitive area and we need to close it.”
A sign announcing the controversial Uluru climb’s “permanent closure” is erected at the base of the iconic Australian monolith. Source: Kydpl Kyodo
On Friday, those traditional owners celebrated as rangers officially closed the Uluru climb at 4pm – but Indigenous groups say they’re still fighting to
keep tourists off dozens of other sites considered sacred.
“Aboriginal people are very concerned about protecting sacred sites because they are our cultural landscapes,” Benedict Scambary, head of the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority, told Reuters, following the Uluru climbing ban.
Renewed hope for Mount Beerwah
In Queensland, Sunshine Coast Indigenous elders are hoping the Uluru ban could signal a similar move for one of their most sacred sites – Mount Beerwah, the highest of the Glass House Mountains.
Elders of the Jinibara people have been locked in a two-decade-long fight with the Queensland government to stop climbing of the mountain, which they considered the “mother” of the surrounding peaks.
Mount Coonowrin and Mount Beerwah, Glass House Mountains National Park. Indigenous groups are hoping to have their sacred spot declared off limits from hikers. Source: Getty Images
However, the Queensland Labor government has stated there are no plans to close off the site to climbers.
In fact, in November last year, the state government allocated $3.03 million for improving walking tracks, picnic areas and to install a car park in the Glass House Mountains National Park.
The heritage-listed national park is located 70 km north of Brisbane and is a popular spot for hikers and walkers. Source: Getty Images
Queensland Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch said the number of visitors to Glass House Mountains National Park was increasing every year.
Respecting Wollumbin
In NSW, Wollumbin (also known as Mount Warning) is considered one of the most popular walking tracks in the state.
And while the 8.8km trek continues to attack hikers and campers year-round, traditional owners, the Bundjalung people, request tourists to leave the area alone.
Wollumbin – also known as Mt Warning – in northern NSW. It’s also a place of “great spiritual significance to the Bundjalung People”. Source: Getty Images
“Wollumbin is a place of great spiritual significance to the Bundjalung People. Visitors are asked to respect their wishes and choose not to climb the summit track,” Bundjalung Elders said in a statement.
“Under Bundjalung law, only certain people can climb the summit. Out of respect for their law and culture, consider not climbing the summit.”
Creation myths
In South Australia, visitors are encouraged to avoid climbing the highest point of the Flinders Ranges – St Mary Peak –
by the area’s traditional owners.
St Mary Peak is central to the Adnyamathanha creation story, which involves two serpents entwined to form the huge natural amphitheatre of Wilpena Pound.
Aboriginal rock art thought to be about 5,000 years old at Arkaroo Rock on the foothills of Wilpena Pound In the Ikara-Flinders Ranges. Source: AAP
“For this reason, the Adnyamathanha people of the Flinders Ranges would prefer that visitors do not climb to the summit of the peak [beyond Tanderra Saddle],” climbing advice for the region states.
Adnyamathanha Traditional Landowners Association chairman Michael Anderson told the Adelaide Advertiser there was little Indigenous groups could do to stop tourists – but said he hoped people educated themselves by visiting.
“You get the same great views from neighbouring Wangara Peak or the Saddle in between the peaks,” he told the newspaper.
The Warratyi rock shelter in the northern Flinders Ranges in SA. Aboriginal Australians settled in arid parts of the country 49,000 years ago. Source: AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE MEDIA CENTRE
“We would hope visitors learn about the story and respect our request that we prefer they did not climb it.”
Climbers ejected
While state governments have mostly ignored traditional owners’ calls to ban climbing on their sacred sites, Uluru is not the only success story.
In February, the Victorian government banned climbing in much of the Grampians National Park after years of complaints from traditional owners that rock climbers and boulderers were damaging traditional sites.
The Grampians were long considered some of the best climbing in Australia and regularly attracted international climbers and tourists – but the region is also home to the largest collection of rock art sites in southern Australia, with traditional owners arguing many of their sites were being damaged or disrupted.
“There are no conditions that we will compromise to protect our cultural heritage,” Victorian Federation of Traditional Owner Corporations chairman Jason Mifsud told The Weekend Australian earlier this year.
He said he welcomed the move to close portions of the park to climbers and campers.
Comment by Nelle-we have a right to the mountains they have no right to stop us -bloody Parks if they are not killing our iconic horses they are now trying to close the mountains to white Australians-we may not have been the first here but neither are Aborigines- they were about the 10th with the Pygmies preceding them- Aborigines killed most of them off but there are some still living in the rain forest in NQ- why haven’t they been given a voice?
Nelle's journey 