Many ancient Aboriginal heritage sites contain rock art, relics, dinasaur footprints and skeletal remains, which are thousands of years old. These areas are of vital importance to the original inhabitants of our country in terms of the continuation of their cultural practice. Ancient stories are recorded in beautiful pictographs in many sacred sites and have been handed down for countless generations.
Our precious heritage areas should be shown the appropriate respect and protected at all costs. However, mining and development interests seems to take precedence over all else in Australia, and a large amount of rock art and a huge number of sacred sites have been vandalised or totally obliterated by mining companies, owing to the weaknesses of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (WA).
Recently, the Western Australian government has introduced a document proposing changes to the Act which will see a further weakening of Indigenous rights and will give open slather to Mining companies.
Please help us fight the rampant greed of big business and stop the wanton desecration and destruction of our precious Indigenous culture. Sign this petition, get others to do the same and send a personal letter to the ministers this petition is addressing.
The petition is here
http://www.change.org/petitions/tony-burke-protect-indigenous-heritage-sites-in-western-australia
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road