6 June 2025
Ancient petroglyphs within the Murujuga cultural site in Western Australia’s Pilbara.
Image credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
The world’s largest rock-art site might not meet the requirements to join the UNESCO World Heritage List because it’s impacted by acidic emissions generated by local fossil fuel plants.
More than 1 million petroglyphs – rock art engravings – are found at Murujuga in the Pilbara region of north-west Western Australia. The cultural site spans some 100,000ha across the Burrup Peninsula and the 42 islands of the Dampier Archipelago.
Aside from its petroglyphs, many of which are tens of thousands of years old, Murujuga also has sacred ceremonial sites, special women’s and men’s areas, grinding sites and huge shell middens. The site holds profound cultural significance for its Traditional Owners and Custodians, the Ngurra-ra Ngarli, which comprises the Ngarluma, Mardudhunera, Yaburara, Yindjibarndi, and Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo groups. First Nations people have lived in the area for at least 47,000 years.
Murujuga Cultural Landscape was formally nominated to join the UNESCO World Heritage List in early 2023.
Now, reports published by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee and its advisory body, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), reveal the listing will likely be referred back to Australia.
Pollution action required
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee meets each year to assess World Heritage site nominations. On 26 May the committee published its meeting agenda ahead of this year’s session, which will take place in Paris from 6–16 July. The agenda includes a draft decision to refer the Murujuga nomination back to the Australian Government.
The draft decision called on the Australian Government to “ensure the total removal of degrading acidic emissions, currently impacting upon the petroglyphs of the Murujuga Cultural Landscape”, “prevent any further industrial development adjacent to, and within, the Murujuga Cultural Landscape” and “develop an appropriate decommissioning and rehabilitation plan for existing industrial activities, as required”.
The report was published two days before the federal government granted a 40-year extension to Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project, also on the Burrup Peninsula. The gas project will continue to operate until 2070.
Curbing acidic emissions
The committee’s draft decision was influenced by the findings of an ICOMOS report that said: “the conservation conditions of the petroglyphs are extremely vulnerable and threatened by industrial acidic emissions”.
The report said acidic and nitrate-rich emissions generated by nearby fossil fuel industries – especially the production of liquefied natural gas – may “accelerate weathering of the petroglyphs, impacting their visibility and stability”. It named Woodside’s gas plant as “the single most significant source of these acidic industrial emissions”.
It concluded that the site “would no longer meet the requirements for World Heritage status” if acidic emissions continued to degrade the petroglyphs.
