Climbing Uluru will be outlawed by October 2019 after the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park board decided unanimously to ban the activity.
The board is comprised of eight traditional owners and three representatives from National Parks, who reached the decision after consulting the Anagu community.
The cultural significance of Uluru needed to be respected on a legislative level, said senior traditional owner and park board chairman Sammy Wilson.
“Some people in tourism and government for example might have been saying we need to keep it open but it’s not their law that lies in this land,” he said.
“The Government needs to respect what we are saying about our culture in the same way it expects us to abide by its laws.”
Calls to ban climbing Ularu have been going unanswered for years, with the site being a traditional sacred location to Indigenous Australians. What’s more, the ban will coincide with the 34th anniversary of Uluru returning to its traditional owners.
