The Northern Territory (NT) is a unique jurisdiction both in the way land and First Nations sacred sites are managed, and in the diverse landscapes and regions these sites reside within.
The Northern Territory is home to some of the most significant First Nations cultural heritage sites in the country, including Uluru, Kata Tjuṯa, Kakudu National Park and the underwater heritage of the Tiwi Islands and surrounding regions. The Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA) database has identified 13,746 sacred sites, with more than 5,000 being water places, and acknowledges that many more sites are yet to be documented.
Land management is a unique feature of the political economy of the NT, with 70 percent of the NT land mass currently under some form of First Nations ownership with inalienable freehold title (either whole or partial). There are four Aboriginal Land Councils that have statutory (government authorised) functions to assist Traditional Owners (TOs), including to protect sacred sites both on and off First Nations-controlled land. Understanding the unique context of the NT geography and demographics helps to make sense of the cultural heritage protection issues that dominate the NT today.
Historically, two events in separate regions of the NT came to epitomise the emerging and competing interests of rights to traditional cultural living, the ambitions of the extractive industries and demands from First Nations peoples for civil rights, with immediate bearings on cultural heritage protection. One was the Yolngu peoples’ unsuccessful battle to prevent the excising of some of their land for development of a bauxite mine in East Arnhem Land in 1963–1971. It was the first time Aboriginal people had taken Court action for land rights and it became known as the Gove land rights case.
The second momentous event (1966-1973) saw the Gurindji peoples’ strike to protest poor working conditions, which resulted in the first successful claim for Aboriginal land in Australia. With strong support from influential union groups, the Gurindji people’s struggle for justice became widely known. It paved the way for the Woodward Royal Commission (1973-74) to find appropriate ways to recognise Aboriginal land rights in the NT, which in turn led to the passing of the 1976 historic NT Land Rights Act.
Yet, despite model legislation, compliance remains an intransigent problem in the NT, where First Nations heritage protection is pitted against the dependency of government revenues drawn from extractive industries.
The NT is often considered to have the strongest cultural heritage protection of all jurisdictions, with greater consequences and criminal sanctions for the damage, desecration or interference with sacred sites. It also operates on a principle of blanket protection which provides that all First Nations cultural heritage and sacred sites are automatically protected (whether or not they are registered).
Two pieces of legislation govern cultural heritage in the NT. The Heritage Act 2011 is the primary legislation relating to First Nations cultural heritage, and sets up a system for assessing, declaring and protecting heritage places in the Northern Territory. The Act works in conjunction with the Northern Territory Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act 1989, which further protects sacred sites within First Nations communities.
In 2019, the NT Government launched the Aboriginal Land and Sea Action Plan. Key aims of this initiative include:
A progress report is available here.
In terms of strengthening cultural heritage protection legislation, the Northern Territory Government has not announced plans to reform the Heritage Act 2011. The Northern Territory Sacred Sites Act 1989, however, has been a point of significant legislative discourse on the back of the destruction of Juukan Gorge and the Way Forward report. The AAPA has begun discussions with the NT Government and Environmental Protection Authority, with a particular focus on accounting for aspects of tangible and intangible heritage that are not protected under either piece of legislation. Further reform to expand the criteria for protection would be a further positive development in heritage protection.
In 2025, very alarmingly, the newly elected Country Liberal Party announced plans to amend the Sacred Sites Act in order to address ‘red tape’ that was blocking development. This represents a significant departure from the content of earlier discussed reforms. Proposed amendments include a transferal system when properties change hands and infringement notices for minor breaches, which aim to ‘streamline’ the overall Act. While other proposed changes remain vague, Traditional Owners have raised concerns over poor consultation and ‘tick a box’ meetings with the Central Land Council. Others have pointed out the legislation is rushed and has not provided First Nations peoples enough time to respond.
We asked for information; he gave us platitudes. He disrespected us and treated us like little children.. He asked us to simply accept that the government’s intentions behind the changes are good. He wouldn’t give us any details about the changes or how they would work. All he had was empty talk.
Warren Williams, Central Land Council Chair
The draft bill is expected to be released in early April 2025.
Thirrinminni, otherwise known by its colonial name the McArthur River, rises in the Barkly Tablelands on Gudanji Country, flows in a northeasterly direction for 521 km and enters the sea in the Gulf of Carpentaria. For at least three decades, the Gudanji, Garrwa, Yantuwa and Marra peoples have fought to preserve these timeless sacred landscapes.
The area is also home to one of the world’s largest deposits of zinc, lead and silver which lie under the river at the place of an important Snake Dreaming. These deposits have been the focus of an underground mine that has been operational since 1995 and run by Mt Isa Mines, Xstrata and now the mining giant Glencore.
In 2003–8, the river was diverted for 5 kms to accommodate the conversion of the mine from an underground mine to an open cut operation. Garrwa man and activist Jack Green describes this diversion, strongly opposed by Traditional Owners of the area, as “Country, torn open to make way for one of the largest lead, zinc and silver mines the world has ever seen. To do this they cut the back of our ancestor—The Rainbow Serpent—by severing McArthur River and diverting it through a 5.5 kilometre diversion cut.”
In 2006, Whitefella miners, with the support of their governments, diverted McArthur River and dug a huge open cut pit in the bed of our river. Then they started building a massive waste rock dump to hide their deadly waste in our Country. The miners waste will be here for thousands of years. They did this to us right in the middle of Sacred Country, right where the Snake Dreamings are, where the Jabiru, the Barramundi, Dingo and Turtle Dreamings are. They cut our Dreaming tracks and threaten our culture and our futures as Aboriginal people. How do we sing the sacred songs when the Dreaming tracks have been destroyed? We feel no good, heavy in our hearts but we keep fighting.
Jack Green
In 2013, a $360 million expansion of the McArthur River Mine near Borroloola was approved by the Northern Territory Government, which more than doubled its zinc and lead output. Six months later, the mine’s waste dump spontaneously started combusting, which sent a plume of toxic iron sulphide smoke over the pristine coastal floodplains and savannah of the Gulf Country. Garawa Traditional Owner Nancy McDinny, among others, had been expressing concern that the dump’s reactions may have contaminated fish in the McArthur River and its tributaries.
‘Fish, sea turtle, dugong that we eat along the sea, shells, we’re too frightened to eat all of our bush tucker now, we grew up eating that stuff,’ McDinny said. In July 2014, elevated levels of heavy metals in fish and invertebrates were found in creeks on the mine site (both tributaries of the McArthur River). Glencore has continued to deny that it has contaminated fish off its site.
More than ten years later, the mine continues to have a devastating impact on sites of cultural significance. In March 2025, Glencore was fined a measly $31,500 for more than 13 years of sacred site law breaches, relating to water monitoring and infrastructure on the Barramundi Dreaming site. Following the judgement, the mine apologised, saying it ‘regrets the concern this has caused to Indigenous traditional owners and custodians’.
In 2022, after three years of deliberation, the NT Government blocked Glencore from destroying an ancient stone tools quarry in tandem with the dumping of half a billion tonnes of toxic rock near the river bank. In 2024, Native Title holders from the McArthur river area won their High Court case to block Glencore from expanding a port facility and a new dredge dumping area on the Gulf of Carpentaria.
While these developments are positive, they are overshadowed by the repeated encroachment of the McArthur Mine onto sacred cultural sites and the overwhelming disrespect shown toward First Nations custodians whose lands and waterways are continually violated. These repeated violations point to the inability of current state and Federal cultural heritage legislation to effectively prevent damage and destruction of First Nations heritage sites, including the blatant disregard for the principle of free, prior and informed consent.
You can read a fuller timeline of the McArthur River Mine here, which documents key changes to the mine’s operations over the years, including a series of adverse effects including significant waste rock dumping, elevated levels of heavy metals in fish and invertebrates in nearby creeks, contamination of cattle, toxic fire, and road train chemical spills.
For over a decade, opposition to the NT Government’s intention to support hydraulic fracturing of onshore unconventional reservoirs (commonly referred to as ‘fracking’) has been growing. In 2016, the NT Government imposed a two-year moratorium on further exploration while it undertook a scientific inquiry into fracking. After publication of the inquiry’s final report – along with government commitments to abide by all the safeguarding recommendations contained in it – the moratorium was lifted. In 2021, the NT Government laid out its plan to pursue advanced exploration of fracking in The Industry Research and Development (Beetaloo Co-operative Drilling Program) Instrument 2021.
Fracking in the Beetaloo Basin has been strongly opposed by a number of First Nations groups across the Basin – including the Gudanji, Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Jingili, Mudburra and Alawa peoples. In June 2021, Traditional Owner groups – with increasing support from environmental groups across the country – were successful in securing a Senate Inquiry into the fracking of the Beetaloo Basin.
The key environmental, financial, social and cultural objections presented to the Inquiry included:
At a March 2022 hearing in Darwin, all these concerns and more were reiterated. In particular, concerns were raised about contamination of ground water and its depletion from the Great Artesian Basin, as well as the increased emissions burden on Australia’s ability to meet its 2050 zero emissions target.
Traditional Owners have been very clear – they don’t want this fracking to go ahead. They don’t want their lands and waters to be poisoned. They don’t want this climate bomb. There is no free, prior and informed consent – and this should be a necessity given the enormous scale of this potential climate disaster.
Yamatji and Noongar woman and senator Dorinda Cox
The Inquiry’s final report was made public in 2023, with recommendations that included increased consultation with Traditional Owners, including the implementation of free, prior and informed consent relating to Beetaloo gas exploration and production.
In June 2024, gas company Empire Energy was slammed for failing to report the discovery of stone tools and artefacts while conducting an exploratory survey on a ‘significant’ medium density site. In January 2025, it was revealed that 2,000 litres of contaminated fracking wastewater were spilled into the Beetaloo Basin, leading to the death of eucalypt trees and grass as well as high levels of toxic metals in the water. Empire Energy would not allow scientist Ian Wright, who accompanied concerned Traditional Owners, to test the fluids and waste held in its storage facilities.
The other company operating in the Beetaloo, Tamboran Resources, also reported spills of more than one thousand litres of drilling fluid and contaminated wastewater at its Shenandoah South Beetaloo project near Daly Waters in late 2024. A spokesman from Tamboran said “none of these recordable incidents caused material environmental harm”.
The Tiwi Islands, located about 80 kilometres off the northern coast of Darwin, are home to approximately 3,000 First Nations people.
The remote region became the centre of a high profile legal dispute over the Barossa gas pipeline project contracted to Santos for $5.7 billion, after Traditional Owners launched legal proceedings against the company and the Federal Government. Backed by the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO), and led by Munupi Senior Lawman and Tiwi Traditional Owner Dennis Tipakalippa, TO’s argued that Santos were insufficient in their assessment of potential damage to tangible and intangible underwater cultural heritage sites and sacred dreaming places in the path of the 262 kilometre pipeline, a section of which comes in close proximity (7km) of the Tiwi Islands. Forecasted to operate over at least two decades, the proposal was estimated by the EDO to contribute approximately 469 million tonnes of carbon emissions, a level of environmental and cultural impact that Tipakalippa argues was not properly discussed in consultation with Tiwi Islanders. The case is significant as according to the EDO, it is the first in Australian history to oppose an offshore project impacting Sea Country on the grounds of a lack of consultation.
It’s all about our future generations. That’s what I worry for. What are they going to have, who are they going to be? Our lives are not just lived on the land, but in the sea – this home that we have loved for thousands of generations.
Dennis Tipakalippa
In 2024, Santos won the legal battle, clearing the way for the company to resume the construction of its pipeline. EDO lawyers were ordered to pay $9 million to Santos for its legal costs The final ruling cited divergences among Tiwi Islanders on relevant songlines and Dreaming stories, leading to the conclusion that “evidence asserting that the songlines relate to or extend into the area of sea country through which the pipeline will pass is insufficient”. Following the ruling, the Tiwi Land Council issued a statement acknowledging the decision, and emphasised Santos’ responsibility to continue to promote cultural sensitivity and respect when approaching the Tiwi people. The same year, the Council criticised Santos’s allocation of 10 million dollars as inadequate in “meeting the needs of the region”, urging a reconsideration in annual investment.
The case calls into question the extent to which current cultural heritage legislation is able to protect tangible and intangible cultural heritage, including underwater cultural heritage in Sea Country. It also reveals issues in the Native Title sector around future acts and Prescribed Body Corporate (PBC) resourcing when up against powerful multinational companies. On the back of the Santos case, proposed legislation was introduced to the Senate seeking to amend the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 so that First Nations people are adequately consulted on the preparation of environment plans for proposed offshore energy projects. The Bill also sought to better include and protect underwater and intangible cultural heritage, as well as to ensure that Traditional Owners and other cultural knowledge holders are included in the list of relevant persons to consult. As of September 2024, the Committee tasked with leading an inquiry into the Bill asked for an extension of time to report until April 2025.
Further Reading/Cases to Watch
