Environment
Aboriginal anger over convict heritage list
Indigenous activists have criticised the United Nations for placing Australia’s convict sites on the World Heritage List.
UNESCO has announced that 11 sites, including Port Arthur, Hyde Park Barracks and Fremantle Prison, should be preserved because of their “outstanding universal value”.
Australia already has 17 World Heritage areas, but only two are buildings.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre says UNESCO should not list any more “white Australian” sites while Aboriginal history is being neglected and destroyed.
But UNESCO says the sites are the best surviving examples of large-scale convict transportation and the colonial expansion of European powers through the presence and labour of prisoners.
Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre legal director Michael Mansell has written to UNESCO asking it not to approve Australia’s nomination due to the involvement of the Tasmanian Government.
Mr Mansell says it’s hypocritical for Tasmania to seek heritage protection for European sites when it destroyed an Aboriginal midden to build a prison wall.
He is also worried about a new bypass on the main road between Hobart and Launceston.
“There’s a one-kilometre stretch by about 300 metres wide which is evidence of the existence of Aboriginal people,” he said.
“It seems to date back to the Ice Age, 40,000 years ago. And because there is a million artefacts there, the archaeologists believe it clearly was a living place and the Aboriginal tribe were still there in the early 1820s.”
Tasmanian Heritage Minister David O’Byrne says the Government has worked with the Aboriginal community to protect significant sites and says consultation is still underway on the Brighton Bypass.
Former television gardening personality Peter Cundall says it is disgraceful that the Aboriginal sites are not fully protected.
“I think we must remember that the Tasmanian Aboriginal sites are some of the most important areas on Earth because it gives the history of an extraordinary people,” he said.
Richard Broome, from the history department of La Trobe University, says the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre does have a point.
“It’s certainly true that the whole interest in heritage from the Australian community and from government bodies has generally focused on European sites,” he said.