Protecting past, present and progress: the reality of coexistence with National and World Heritage properties
Daniel ThomasWoodside Energy Ltd, The Quarter, Level 3, 24 Sharpe Avenue, Karratha, WA 6714, Australia. Email: daniel.thomas@woodside.com.au
The APPEA Journal 60(2) 544-547 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ19136
Accepted: 12 March 2020 Published: 15 May 2020
Abstract
Murujuga, also known as the Dampier Archipelago, is a highly significant cultural landscape rich in Aboriginal cultural heritage, particularly rock engravings known as petroglyphs. In 2007, part of this landscape was included on the National Heritage List, and in 2018 the process towards World Heritage Listing began. Murujuga has also been home to industry for over half a century, including Woodside-operated natural gas processing operations since the 1980s. The effects of development on heritage and the need to mitigate damage are long-standing subjects of discussion internationally. This paper outlines how Woodside seeks to ensure the coexistence of its operations and Murujuga’s cultural landscape, and examines the less frequently considered effects of coexistence on industry, both positive and negative. The largest benefits of coexistence arise from the formalisation and enumeration of heritage values, allowing targeted management with a values-driven approach, stakeholder identification, impact assessment and collaboration. The greatest difficulties arise from regulation, activism and heightened reputational risks, but this paper also identifies certain structures that come with heritage listing that can be used to mitigate these challenges.
Keywords: conservation, cultural heritage, heritage management, Murujuga.
Daniel Thomas is the Senior Corporate Affairs Adviser for heritage matters at Woodside Energy Ltd, Australia’s largest oil and gas company. Daniel is based in Karratha, where he oversees monitoring and protection of nationally and internationally significant Indigenous rock art on Murujuga (also known as the Burrup Peninsula) around its operational facilities. Prior to this role Daniel worked as a consulting archaeologist and heritage consultant on projects in the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, including for a variety of oil and gas and mining projects. This history has given Daniel familiarity with the diversity of practice, good and bad, in Australian industry with regard to the protection of cultural sites, as well as the potential benefits and challenges that heritage can bring to a company. Daniel completed a Graduate Diploma in Archaeology at Flinders University in 2011 following a Graduate Certificate and Bachelors degree in the same field. Throughout his subsequent professional career following graduation, Daniel has been involved in the study and preservation of rock art. Daniel is currently in his final year of a Juris Doctor at RMIT University. |
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