Tourist rush at Australia's Uluru before climb ban

France24 – AFP, 12 July 2019

Clambering up the giant red monolith, also known as Ayers Rock, will be prohibited
from October - in line with the wishes of the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land AFP

Sydney (AFP) - A looming ban on climbing Australia's Uluru rock, intended to protect the sacred site from damage, has instead triggered a damaging influx of visitors, tourism operators said Friday.

Clambering up the giant red monolith, also known as Ayers Rock, will be prohibited from October -- in line with the wishes of the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land, the Anangu.

But a rush to beat the ban has led to a sharp increase in tourists and is causing its own problems for the World Heritage Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.

Families arriving in campers vans and RVs are a particular problem, chief executive of Tourism Central Australia Stephen Schwer told AFP.

"We have got so much of one particular market coming, we don't have enough infrastructure to handle the number of drive travellers."

While most visitors are doing the right thing, camping venues in the area are at capacity with advance bookings, leaving many less organised arrivals to set up illegally.

"People don't realise when they go off the road they are actually trespassing on pastoral land, or Aboriginal land, or protected land," Schwer said.

"We are getting people that are leaving their rubbish behind and lighting fires," he added.

"Sadly, people are also emptying their toilet waste out of their vans on what they think is unpopulated land, but is actually private land."

In the 12 months to June 2019, more than 395,000 people visited the Uluru-Kata National Park, according to Parks Australia, about 20 percent more than the previous year.

Yet just 13 percent of those who visited also climbed the rock, the government agency said.

Tourism operators say that Australian and Japanese tourists most commonly seek to climb Uluru.

The Aboriginal connection to the site dates back tens of thousands of years and it has great spiritual and cultural significance to them.

"Since the hand back of Uluru and Kata Tjuta to traditional owners in 1985, visitors have been encouraged to develop an understanding and respect for Anangu and their culture," a spokesperson for Parks Australia said.

"This is reflected in the 'please don't climb' message," they added.

Lyndee Severin from Curtin Springs station and roadhouse, one of just a few camping venues within 100 kilometres of Uluru, said "the vast majority of people are doing the right thing" but hundreds were setting up illegally by the side of the road or down a bush track.

"So we have some people that think that the rules don't apply to them," she told AFP.

Dutch tourist killed in Malaysia cave floods, guide missing

CNA – AFP, 13 July 2019

Peter Hans Hovenkamp, 66, was from Utrecht in the central Netherlands.
(Photo: Sarawak Fire and Rescue Department)

KUALA LUMPUR: Flash floods killed a Dutch tourist in a popular cave located in the rugged Mulu National Park on Malaysia's Borneo island, an official said Saturday (Jul 13), as a search continues for a missing guide.

Local fire and rescue chief Law Poh Kiong identified the dead man as 66-year-old Peter Hans Hovenkamp from Utrecht in the central Netherlands.

"He died due to drowning following flash floods in the caves. His body was found in a river inside the cave and was taken to the Miri public hospital for a post-mortem on Saturday," he told AFP.

Law said a search-and-rescue operation involving 16 officers had been launched to locate 20-year local tour guide Roviezal Robin.

This handout from the Sarawak Fire and Rescue Department taken and released
on Jul 13, 2019 shows the body of Dutch tourist Peter Hans Hovenkamp being carried
out of Mulu National Park on the island of Borneo. (Photo: AFP/Sarawak Fire and
Rescue Department)

Eight other tourists in the same group "almost become victims" but fled to higher ground and escaped from being washed into the river, Law added.

Hovenkamp was reported missing on Friday while the group was touring the popular "Deer Cave", home to an estimated three million bats which form amazing patterns in the sky when they leave each dusk.

Mulu park, located in the remote Borneo jungle of Sarawak state and famous for its caves, cliffs and gorges, is a UNESCO world heritage site.

It sees thousands of visitors annually, particularly for its cooling rains during the summer months.

Law described the death as "a freak tragedy."

Australian Aboriginal site gains World Heritage recognition

Yahoo – AFP, July 7, 2019

UNESCO has added the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in Australia to its World
Heritage list (AFP Photo/MIGUEL MEDINA)

An Aboriginal settlement older than the pyramids that provides evidence that indigenous Australians developed sophisticated aquaculture thousands of years ago has been granted World Heritage status, the UN has announced.

The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in southeast Australia was created by the Gunditjmara nation some 6,600 years ago and includes remnants of elaborate stone channels and pools built to harvest eels from a lake and wetland swamp areas.

The site also holds evidence of stone dwellings that counter the myth that Aboriginal peoples were simply nomadic hunter-gatherers with no established settlements or sophisticated means of food production.

UNESCO's World Heritage committee, in announcing the addition of Budj Bim to its global listing on Saturday, said the site showed the Gunditjmara had developed "one of the largest and oldest aquaculture networks in the world."

The system of stone channels, dams and pools were used to contain floodwaters and create basins to trap, store and harvest eels that provided the population with "an economic and social base for six millennia", it said.

Budj Bim, in Victoria state, is the first site in Australia to receive World Heritage status solely for its Aboriginal cultural importance.

Nineteen other World Heritage sites in the country include the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park, the Sydney Opera house and fossil sites in the states of Queensland and South Australia.

The Gunditjmara people had lobbied for nearly 20 years for UN recognition of Budj Bim, and tribal elder Denise Lovett welcomed the listing as "a very special day for our community".

"This landscape, which we have cared for over thousands of years, is so important to Gunditjmara People," she told national broadcaster SBS.

"The decision also recognises Budj Bim's significance to all of humanity. We are so proud to now be able to share our achievements and story with the world."

Archaeological evidence shows that Aboriginal peoples have lived in Australia for more than 60,000 years, making it one of the oldest continuous cultures in the world.

But since the arrival of European colonists in the late 18th century, the indigenous population saw most of its land taken for farming or livestock grazing.

Today, there are around 750,000 people of Aboriginal descent in Australia -- about three percent of the population -- but they have far higher poverty rates and lower life expectancy than non-indigenous Australians and make up about 28 percent of the prison population.