Imagine if mining was allowed under the pyramids of Egypt or beneath England’s Stonehenge, endangering these ancient wonders. 

Imagine if authorities allowed heavy industries to set up on the doorstep of the Lascaux caves in France, spewing out pollution that jeopardised the world heritage listed paintings dating back to the Ice Age on the cave walls. 

It’s almost inconceivable. Yet something akin to this is happening in Australia. It threatens a unique heritage at least twice the age of the Lascaux cave paintings and eight times as ancient as the pyramids and the prehistoric stone structure on Salisbury plain. 

In the far north-west of Western Australia is a vast outdoor gallery of exquisite rock art.

The ancient petroglyphs of Murujuga, also known as the Burrup Peninsula, are nominated for the World Heritage  list.

They document a continuous history of people living in a changing environment over more than 40 thousand years. The art includes extinct animals and some of the earliest known images of the human face. 

It is of immense spiritual importance to the traditional custodians of this land. 

Shamefully, for decades, governments have allowed petroglyphs on Murujuga to be ruined. Government continues to green light polluting industries that could destroy the archaeological treasures. 

Over the decades, thousands of the petroglyphs have been wrecked to make way for industrial development. Big concentrations were bulldozed from the 1960s for a town and infrastructure to support iron ore exports.

Rock art was destroyed or moved to accommodate big gas and chemical plants. The desecration continues today. As recently as 2023, petroglyphs were cleared for a fertiliser factory.

But the biggest threat comes from acidic air pollution.

In effect, governments, state and federal, have transformed one of the most important cultural heritage sites in the world into an industrial park – home to gas and chemical plants that create a toxic output that imperils the petroglyphs. 

In laboratory tests, the Murujuga rock art conservation project at the University of Western Australia took the type of rock the petroglyphs feature on and exposed it the level of acidity it faces because of industrial pollution. The rock began to decompose.

The is consistent with warnings in multiple peer reviewed studies Reports, Articles, and Scientific Papers — Friends of Australian Rock Art  that the acid gas emissions will wreck the rock art. The warnings go unheeded.  

Late last year, Western Australia gave the go ahead to a 50-year gas industry expansion in the region – extending the life of oil and gas giant Woodside’s North West Shelf venture and the Karratha Gas Plant on the Burrup Peninsula. It would be fed by huge new onshore and offshore gas fields.  

The federal Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, still needs to consider the proposal and could block it under national environment law. 

Greenhouse gas emissions from the enormous gas expansion would be reason enough to reject Woodside’s plans; the North West Shelf also produces thousands of tonnes of nitrogen and sodium emissions.

When dissolved by dew or rain, they can corrode the outer layer of the petroglyphs, essential to their integrity.  

A WA Parliamentary inquiry in the last decade WA Parliamentary Inquiry 2018 exposed the ham-fisted process that allowed industrial development to go ahead without a proper assessment of the threat to the rock art.  

A leading global authority complained to the inquiry that his work was misused to falsely conclude that industrial emissions were unlikely to damage the petroglyphs.

Key studies by the CSIRO that eased the path for development were flawed in their methods and riddled with errors, making their conclusions worthless. 

Even after admitting mistakes and accepting that there was statistically significant fading of rock art, the agency said it could not “confirm or exclude” that it was caused by industrial development.

That’s manna from heaven for Woodside; it trots out the claim that findings were “inconclusive” to support its demands for gas expansion.  

Yet the evidence that the rock art could be destroyed by industrial emissions is clear. 

A former senior CSIRO scientist, John Black, co-wrote a withering critique of the flawed reports which was backed by a further independent assessment.

Dr Black says the rock art will not survive the impact of the huge industrial developments and their emissions of acid-forming gases and nitrogenous compounds.  

He poses the question: “Do they really want to destroy in one generation something that has been there for 40,000?

The willingness of a society to protect an ancient heritage such as this tells us much about its values. Right now, short-term profit and income is being placed above the priceless. But that could change. 

Prominent Australian artists and authors have signed an open letter urging the environment minister to reject Woodside’s gas expansion on the North West Shelf and put a priority on safeguarding the Murujuga petroglyphs.

A loud enough public outcry might convince politicians to shift course and phase out industrial development that will otherwise destroy the irreplaceable. 

Stephen Long is Senior Fellow and Contributing Editor at the Australia Institute.