The Burrup Peninsula, previously known as Dampier Island, is a former island of the Dampier Archipelago that is now connected to the mainland via a causeway. The peninsula and islands together are also known as Murujuga. The peninsula is located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia and contains the town of Dampier as well as the Murujuga National Park. The peninsula includes the Murujuga Cultural Landscape, an area designated as a World Heritage Site in July 2025. The area contains the world's largest collection of ancient (approximately 40,000–50,000 years old) rock art (known as petroglyphs).
There is ongoing political debate on whether industrial development on the Burrup is resulting in the physical destruction and disturbance of petroglyphs. The government and industry agree that there is no ongoing damage via atmospheric pollution, while independent academics disagree.
The region is sometimes confused with the Dampier Peninsula, to the north-east.
History and toponymy The traditional owners of Murujuga are an Aboriginal nation known as the Yaburara (Jaburara) people. In Ngayarda languages, including that of the Yaburara, means .José Antonio González Zarandona, Murujuga: Rock Art, Heritage, and Landscape Iconoclasm, University of Pennsylvania Press 2020 p.14 'hip bone sticking out . .which is thought to refer to a pile of blocks that loom in the landscape.' Between February and May 1869 a great number of Yaburara people were killed in an incident known as the Flying Foam Massacre. The five clans who took over the care of the land as traditional custodians following the massacre include Yaburara, Ngarluma, Mardudhunera, Yindjibarndi and Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo peoples.
First given the English name Dampier Island after the English navigator William Dampier (1651–1715), it was then an island lying off the Pilbara coast. In 1963 the island became an artificial peninsula when it was connected to the mainland by a causeway for a road and railway. In 1979 Dampier Peninsula was renamed Burrup Peninsula after Mount Burrup, the highest peak on the island, which had been named after Henry Burrup, a Union Bank clerk murdered in 1885 at Roebourne.
Murujuga Cultural Landscape
Description of rock art
The Murujuga Cultural Landscape contains the world's largest and most important collection of petroglyphs. Some of the Aboriginal rock carvings have been dated to more than 45,000 years old, and some of the collection is generally estimated to be 40,000–50,000 years old. The collection of standing stones here is the largest in Australia with rock art petroglyphs numbering over one million, many depicting images of the now extinct thylacine (Tasmanian tiger). There are around a million engravings on the peninsula and islands, and around 2,500 archaeological sites which also include quarries, shell middens, and campsites.
The Dampier Rock Art Precinct covers the entire archipelago, while the Murujuga National Park lies within Burrup. The Dampier Rock Art Precinct was listed by the World Monuments Fund as one of the 100 Most Threatened Monuments in the world in 2003.
Most Murujuga rock art is on 2.7 billion year old igneous rocks. The rock art was made by etching away the outer millimetres of red-brown iron oxide, exposing pale centimetre-thick weathered clay. The underneath very hard igneous rock is dark grey-green coloured, and composed of granophyre, gabbo, dolerite, and granite.
The Murujuga cultural landscape was a well-known archaeological and cultural precinct during construction of industry across the area in the 1960s—1980s. However, it was not until 1998 that the first Indigenous Land Access Agreement was executed for industrial use of the Karratha Gas Plant area. This was a retrospective agreement, as the North West Shelf Gas Plant was constructed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, this ‘prior consent’ was not obtained for the North West Shelf project. The Ngarluma Yindjibarndi Foundation Ltd (NYFL) is the Traditional Owner agreement party for the 1998 Agreement. Later, the Burrup and Maitland Industrial Estates Agreement (BMIEA) was executed to allow for further industrial development across the Murujuga Cultural Landscape. Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation (MAC) represents Traditional Owners for the BMIEA area.
Road to World Heritage Listing
Concern around the ecological, historical, cultural and archaeological significance of the area has led to a campaign for its protection, causing conflict with industrial development on the site. The preservation of the Murujuga monument has been called for since 1969, and in 2002 the International Federation of Rock Art Organizations commenced a campaign to preserve the remaining monument. Murujuga has been listed in the National Trust of Australia Endangered Places RegisterNational Trust of Australia, Endangered Places Register 2004, http://www.heritageatrisk.org.au/WA_-_Dampiert_Rock_Art_Precinct.html and in the 2004, 2006, and 2008 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund.
About 900 sites, or 24.4 percent of the rock art on Burrup Peninsula, had been destroyed to make way for industrial development between 1963 and 2006.Robert G. Bednarik, Dampier Fact Sheet, October 2006, The Western Australian government argued for a much lower figure, suggesting that only 4 percent of sites, representing approximately 7.2 percent of petroglyphs, had been destroyed since 1972,Hon. John Ford, answer to question on notice, Western Australia Legislative Council Hansard, 16 August 2005. citing the lack of a complete inventory of rock art in the regionWA Department of Industry and Resources, Burrup Peninsula. Frequently Asked Questions as making assessments is a challenging task.
In 1996, a land use plan by the Burrup Peninsula Management Advisory Board divided the region into two areas:
a Conservation, Heritage and Recreation Area, spanning , 62% of the Burrup an Industrial Area with an emphasis on port sites and strategic industry, 38% of the Burrup While the plan commented upon "the value of the Northern Burrup for the preservation of its renowned Aboriginal heritage and environmental values", no comment was made on the amount of rock art affected by development and recreational activities.
Work commissioned by the National Trust of Western Australia led it to nominate the site for the National Trust Endangered Places list in 2002.National Trust of Australia (WA), Archaeology and rock art in the Dampier Archipelago, http://www.burrup.org.au/ In 2004, funding was provided by American Express through the World Monuments Fund for further research and advocacy to be undertaken, with the goal of achieving national heritage status for the site. In 2006 the Australian Heritage Council advised the federal Environment and Heritage Minister that the site was suitable for listing on the National Heritage List.National Trust backs Burrup heritage report ABC News Online, 4 October 2006. The Western Australian state government continued to support development at the site, arguing a lack of cost-effective alternative sites and that geographical expansion of facility areas would be extremely limited. Former conservative party Resources Development Minister Colin Barnett temporarily supported campaigns to save rock art in this area.Interview with Colin Barnett 60 Minutes. The federal government was divided on the issue. One reason to support site protection is that national heritage bodies support protection for the area, and the governments at national and state level had been of opposing political parties. On the other hand, the government was reluctant to interfere with the economic prosperity generated by the Western Australian economy.New factors prompt further Burrup Peninsula consideration (transcript of radio report) AM, ABC Radio, 3 October 2006. After scientific evidence showed that acidic emissions from nearby industry was harming the rock art irreparably in 2002, the government commissioned a four-year study of the impact of pollution, starting in 2004.
The protest campaign against development garnered popular support, which included 42,000 personal messages sent to Woodside Petroleum's directors at their May 2007 AGM. The directors said that the state government had directed them towards development among the rock art. The debate continued as of June 2007, with no intervention made by the Australian government. The federal minister indicated support for National Heritage listing, but the question of site boundaries and management strategies was still under negotiation.The Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, Turnbull works for Burrup Solution, media release, 22 February 2007 The site was heritage-listed in the Australian national heritage in 2007.
On 7 July 2008, the Australian Government placed 90% of the remaining rock art areas of the Dampier Archipelago on the National Heritage List. Campaigners continued to demand that the Australian Government include all of the undisturbed areas of the Dampier Archipelago on the World Heritage List. According to the Philip Adams radio show on Radio National, one worker on the site, an electrician for Woodside, claimed the company had crushed 10,000 petroglyphs for road fill, including the oldest representation of a human face. He said that the rock pools were filled with green scum and the eucalypts of the area were dying, and there was fluming of escaping natural gas from faulty piping.'Burrup's rock art: the protracted World Heritage listing,' Late Night Live with Philip Adams, 29 April 2013
In February 2009, the state government released a report finding that industry emissions did not damage the rock art. WA Greens Senator Rachel Siewart criticised Premier Colin Barnett for reversing his previous support for protecting the rock art. However, a 2011 report by researcher Mike Donaldson wrote that reducing emissions was essential to protect the rock art for future generations. Along with mechanical damage to the rock art from industrial land clearance for roads, pipelines, power lines, and other areas, Murujuga rock art has been damaged by industrial pollution. Acidic dust pollution combines with water to form acids that dissolute manganese and iron compounds, causing the fragmentation of the rock varnish and patina.
As of 2011, the area remained on the World Monument Fund's list of 100 Most Endangered Places in the World - the only such site in Australia - because of continued mismanagement of the heritage and conservation values of the Burrup.
In January 2020, the Australian Government lodged a submission for the Murujuga Cultural Landscape to be included as an Australian entry to the World Heritage Tentative List.
In November 2021, around 50 local people rallied at Karratha to protest against one of the biggest oil and gas developments ever undertaken in Australia, by Woodside Petroleum and BHP, known as the Scarborough project (Scarborough being the name of the gas field, off the Pilbara coast). The project includes a floating production unit, the drilling of 13 wells, and a pipeline to transport the gas to the onshore Pluto LNG processing facility near Karratha, which will be expanded. Production is expected to begin in 2026. The project received environmental approval. The Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation has no role in approving such industrial projects, but there has been research being undertaken as to whether increased emissions would affect the rock art.
In July 2022, Raelene Cooper presented the concerns of some of the traditional owners to the UN in Geneva, which stated "The rock art archives our lore. It is written not on a tablet of stone, but carved into the ngurra, which holds our Dreaming stories and Songlines". She also wrote to government ministers Linda Burney and Tanya Plibersek.
World Heritage listing and scientific controversy