The federal government has made a rare protection order under Indigenous heritage legislation to protect a sacred site near Blayney in western New South Wales from becoming the site of a tailings dam for a goldmine.
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, made a partial declaration under section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection (ATSHIP) Act to protect part of the headwaters of the Belubula River on Kings Plains, which was the proposed site of a tailings dam for the McPhillamys goldmine.
Wiradjuri elder Aunty Nyree Reynolds lodged an application under the heritage act in 2021 to protect the proposed footprint of the mine and the tailings dam.
Reynolds was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a kind of cancer, in 2020 but said that when she was asked by her community to lodge the application, she knew she could get the strength to do so.
“I thought if I can do work with everyone and the ancestors to stop this ... because to kill the Belabula by putting cement in the springs was unthinkable,” Reynold said, in a video interview provided to Guardian Australia by the federal environment department. “So long [it’s been here], this little river – it’s only tiny but it’s our river.
“So the ancestors are saying they’ll be happy. That’s not a strong enough word. They would be grateful, happy, secure, and I just want to say thank you from the very depths and the bottom of my heart.”
Plibersek said the protection order would take effect immediately and would not affect the development of the open-cut goldmine itself, which was approved in March 2023. The McPhillamys project, owned by Regis Resources, is expected to extract more than 60m tonnes of ore and produce 2m ounces of gold over its 11-year lifespan.
“Crucially, my decision is not to stop the mine,” Plibersek said. “The company has indicated to me that it has assessed around four sites and 30 potential options for the tailings dam.
“Protecting cultural heritage and development are not mutually exclusive. We can have both.”
The declaration was issued on Tuesday but not announced until Friday afternoon. In a statement, Plibersek said the headwaters of the Belubula River were of spiritual and cultural significance to the Wiradjuri people and were linked to ongoing cultural practices.
“They have featured in many traditions practised for generations, including by Aboriginal people transitioning from youth to young adulthood,” she said. “Some of these traditions have been disclosed to me privately and must remain confidential due to their cultural sensitivity. If this site were to be desecrated, it would be a threat to the continuance of Wiradjuri/Wiradyuri culture.
“Because I accept that the headwaters of the Belubula River are of particular significance to the Wiradjuri/Wiradyuri people in accordance with their tradition, I have decided to protect them.”
The protected area includes the headwaters, springs and a stretch of the river itself.
The order states that the area is “a significant Aboriginal area that is to be preserved and protected from injury and desecration”, including undertaking any mining activities or earthworks, laying concrete, drilling, land clearing, disturbing native vegetation and soil, or “any activity that will, or is likely to, significantly alter the landform or course of water flowing within the declared area”.
Activities that would be considered to “injure or desecrate” the declared area include using or treating the area “in a manner inconsistent with the Aboriginal tradition”, anything that adversely affects the use or significance of the area in accordance with Aboriginal tradition, or people travelling through the area “in a manner inconsistent with the Aboriginal tradition”.
Failure of successive governments to use the ATSHIP Act to protect Aboriginal heritage was a key focus of a parliamentary inquiry into the destruction of Juukan Gorge, a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site in Western Australia.
The Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation (WTOCWAC), which opposes the mine, has said that songlines going through Kings Plains connect to a sacred site on Wahluu-Mount Panorama, which was protected in 2021.
Kings Plains is bordered by three mountains – Gaanha Bula-Mount Canobolas, Wahluu-Mount Panorama and Guhanawalnyi-Mount Macquarie – and is part of the Three Brothers dreaming story.
Wiradjuri elder Uncle Bill Allen told Guardian Australia in October that the area was an initiation ground.
“They’d hold ceremony with the boys that were going to be initiated into men and become warriors,” he said. “They were brought to that area from all parts of Wiradyuri country. They followed the different songlines that come into that place.”
Regis Resources did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
• This article was amended on 19 August 2024 to correct that the McPhillamys Gold Project is forecast to produce 2m ounces of gold over 11 years, not 2m tonnes as an earlier version said.
