Uluru Climbs Banned from October 2019 After Unanimous Board Decision to 'Close the Playground'
- 2019-05-30
- ABC News
Climbing Uluru is set to be a thing of the past after the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park board decided unanimously to ban the activity, starting in 2019.
The board, made up of eight traditional owners and three representatives from National Parks, made the decision after consulting with the wider Anangu community, who it said was overwhelmingly in support of banning climbs.
Traditional owners have been asking visitors not to climb Uluru since the 1985 handback and signs requesting people reconsider climbing have been in place at the base of the climb area since 1992.
They were that new visitor experiences were successfully established; cultural and natural experiences on offer were why tourists visited the park; and that the number of visitors climbing Uluru had fallen below 20 per cent.
More recently, tourism operators rejected claims a ban would result in a drop in visitors, saying ending the activity and teaching people about why it was inappropriate to scale the rock might increase visitation.