Climbing Ban Could be Coming to Uluru

Photo by nosha via Flickr (Creative Commons)

An Australian government proposal is in the works to ban tourists from climbing Uluru, the distinctive red rock monolith that is considered sacred ground by local indigenous groups. Those same groups have been pushing for the move for years, but the proposal is—predictably—controversial in other quarters: “Big Brother is coming to Uluru to slam the gate closed on an Australian tourism icon,” said one conservative politician quoted in the Independent.

Invoking Orwell here seems a tad dramatic. I’m more inclined to agree with local elder Vince Forrester. “You can’t go climb on top of the Vatican, you can’t go climb on top of the Buddhist temples and so on and so forth,” he said. “Obviously you have to respect our religious attachment to the land too, so we’re saying please do not climb Uluru.”

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