Australia’s Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, is an iconic destination, attracting more than 350,000 people a year. But it’s much more than a tourist destination; the World Heritage-listed rock is sacred to the local Aborigine people.
More than 100,000 people climb the rock every year, but now the Australian government is supporting the wishes of the local indigenous population and proposing a ban on climbing the famed rock. “You can’t go climb on top of the Vatican, you can’t go climb on top of the Buddhist temples and so on and so forth,” local elder Vince Forrester from Mutitjulu township told state radio.
A ‘We Don’t Climb‘ sign has long graced the entrance to Uluru, encouraging visitors to respect the local culture and not climb, but in a time when Australia’s tourism industry is under threat by the global financial crisis, a government ban concerns some officials.
“Big Brother is coming to Uluru to slam the gate closed on an Australian tourism icon, the climb,” said conservative politician Greg Hunt.
If approved, the legislation could take place in 18 months.
What do you think? Should climbing be banned on Uluru?
Strikes me that a good solution would like that at Devil’s Tower – make it off-limits (either by decree or good practice) during certain times of year.
The heart of this is whether unique treasures in the world should be governed entirely by those who own the land or place some religious claim on it. One would think that if the Aborigines felt all mountains were special and should not be climbed that we would not respect that. All of this is a balancing act between accommodating the rights of many parties.