Bureaucrat bungle? FMG railway threat to 23,000 years of Pilbara history

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Bureaucrat bungle? FMG railway threat to 23,000 years of Pilbara history

By Emma Young

Spear Hill in the Pilbara is a sacred place for the East Guruma people. Songs and stories, as well as modern science, tell of their unbroken use of the place for tens of thousands of years.

Eastern Guruma have long defined their relationship to country by geographic features, with three different but related groups associated with various plains, ranges and waterways.

Spear Hill, in local language Ngajanha Marnta, is the subject of a complex dreamtime creation story about two ancestral beings, a pebble mouse and a field mouse, representing two men, and the origin of the high quality timber-producing ‘spearwood’ trees found growing on the hill.

A song telling this story, which is also about the importance of gathering and sharing resources, is one of the few in the region that have survived the upheaval in the local culture over the past 150 years. The song is taught to young men as they “go through the law”.

The hill, part of traditional routes across and around the area for this and visiting groups for many thousands of years, is accessed through a valley full of rock shelters. Some are obvious and some are hidden and hard to reach, but the sites are full of secret niches and artworks.

Camping and hiking through the valley to reach the hill since the Ice Age, Aboriginal people used to hide objects in these spots that they considered too special or powerful to keep at camp.

The local Aboriginal people use and access Spear Hill and surrounds in much the same way now and consider it of vital importance in their culture.

Eastern Guruma have seen their age-old connection to Ngajanha Marnta ignored, belittled and ultimately threatened with destruction.

Archaeologist's report

Spear Hill has protection under WA’s Aboriginal heritage laws, but until Fortescue Metals Group decided it needed to build a railway through the adjoining valley there was little official knowledge of the rock shelter sites or their relationship to the hill.

Spear Hill (Ngajanha Marnta) near Karijini National Park in the Pilbara.

Spear Hill (Ngajanha Marnta) near Karijini National Park in the Pilbara. Credit: Paul Abrahams

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Archaeologists only recently visited the site and carried out radiocarbon dating and other forms of testing to determine that the area had been used for at least 23,000 years.

In defence of the sites, the local Wintawari Guruma Aboriginal Corporation had hired the consultants to prepare the report into 14 of the most significant, to inform Aboriginal Affairs Minister Ben Wyatt of their meanings.

The Minister was tasked with considering FMG’s application to destroy the sites to make way for its proposed railway, which would service its new $1-$1.5 billion Eliwana iron ore mine.

While the East Guruma people did not oppose the mine or the railway they hoped it would go around these sites.

They felt FMG’s report did not convey the area’s significance or appreciate the relationship of these sites to Spear Hill.

East Guruma traditional owners near the site.

East Guruma traditional owners near the site. Credit: Paul Abrahams.

A government bungle?

The Aboriginal corporation made an application to the state’s Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee, advising the committee’s registrar that the purpose was to determine and provide missing information on the cultural significance of the sites so that FMG, the cultural materials committee and the Minister had complete information with which to consider FMG’s notice.

The Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee considered the Aboriginal people’s application and the FMG application at the same meeting.

Meanwhile the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage, to which the committee belongs, gave the Aboriginal corporation until March 1 to provide their archaeologist's report in support of their claims.

But on the Committee’s recommendation, Minister Wyatt approved FMG’s application on November 30.

The government had given the OK to do further studies into the sites’ heritage significance, in the same breath as giving FMG permission to destroy them.

The Aboriginal corporation was “very upset”, Mr Bevan said, by what it saw as different government agencies contradicting each other.

The rock shelters were once used to house ceremonial objects too precious to be kept in camps.

The rock shelters were once used to house ceremonial objects too precious to be kept in camps. Credit: Paul Abrahams.

It had spent $250,000 to engage the consultant archaeologists who visited with traditional owners to explore the sites and carry out the radiocarbon and luminescence dating tests.

“We would have imagined the government would hold off so we could do the work,” Mr Bevan said.

“I don’t see how the cultural materials committee can do their job without all the information.”

The archaeologists' report said the site was unlike any other area in the region and its traditions had continued to the present day unbroken and uninterrupted.

"In less than a year, Eastern Guruma have seen their age-old connection to Ngajanha Marnta ignored, belittled and ultimately threatened with destruction ... the ancient route along Ngajanha Wuntu and its tributaries will no longer exist. For the first time in more than 20,000 years, Eastern Guruma will not be able to care for or visit Ngajanha Marnta as their ancestors did,” the report said.

"Not only will Eastern Guruma lose all of the sites around Ngajanha Marnta, but also the ancient access route up the hill which can only be climbed from its western side. Eastern Guruma will no longer be able to harvest spearwood, or maintain the sanctity of Ngajanha Marnta."

Rock art near the site.

Rock art near the site. Credit: Paul Abrahams.

"Eastern Guruma people wonder what the Minister would have done if he had only known.”

Minister Wyatt’s office, when WAtoday asked, stood by the decisions of the Committee, the Registrar and the Minister.

Minister Wyatt said in a statement that the approval had been on condition that the Aboriginal people be given the opportunity to “salvage” the thousands of artefacts on the sites before they were destroyed.

The Aboriginal corporation has lodged a Freedom of Information request with the government regarding the matter.

It called for FMG to realign three kilometres of railway, less than three per cent of its length, to go around the heritage sites.

“FMG have not consulted with us properly. We asked for time to do the assessments and the research and they’ve proceeded with their plans. We don’t believe the consultation’s been sufficient. And now our report has just been ignored.”

Fortescue chief executive Elizabeth Gaines rejected the suggestion that FMG had not consulted properly. She said the company “worked closely with the Eastern Guruma people and the state to secure the necessary heritage approvals."

“We remain optimistic that through ongoing engagement important cultural heritage can be managed appropriately, while also increasing economic opportunities for Eastern Guruma people," she said.

Without any appeal process available, the Aboriginal corporation has gone to federal Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg, who has ordered a Melbourne barrister to make a report on the matter.

It asked the Federal Minister to place an emergency protection order on the site.

His department said that negotiations on this point between the Aboriginal corporation and FMG had been unsuccessful but Mr Frydenberg had not declared an emergency protection for the site “based on a commitment from the proponent”.

The barrister is due to make his report to Minister Frydenberg by the end of May.

There is then no time limit for the Minister to make his decision.

The building of the railway itself is subject to a separate approvals process under the Environmental Protection Authority.

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