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.
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