Traditional owners groups from the Burrup Peninsula region of Western Australia will put forward their competing views on Woodside's continued activity in the area, at next month's UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in Paris.  

Raelene Cooper will lead a delegation from Save our Songlines - a campaign group coordinated by Murujuga traditional custodians – while Peter Hicks, the current chair of the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation (MAC) will be part of the federal government's delegation. 

While both want the renowned Murujuga rock art to be listed as a world heritage site, that's where the common ground ends for Cooper and Hicks, especially when it comes to continued industrial activity in the area. 

Cooper, a former chair of MAC and an outspoken critic of industry and its impact on the region, is in the midst of a court process to have her section 10 application heard by the environment minister Murray Watt. A section 10 allows any Aboriginal person or group to apply to the minister to consider whether a specific location warrants federal protection. 

Hicks, on the other hand, believes there is a way industry and culture can co-exist in the Pilbara area. 

"I am travelling to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee session in Paris to ensure that UNESCO are aware of the threats posed by Woodside, even if Anthony Albanese and Murray Watt would rather they weren't," said Cooper. 

"UNESCO needs to know about the scale of the destruction and cultural desecration from government and industry, and they need to impose a moratorium on any further damage as a condition of World Heritage listing." 

To reinforce her argument Cooper will be taking with her a letter from six UN Special Rapporteurs to the Australian government from which underpinned a recommendation that emerged last month from another body which advises the UNESCO panel to knock back World Heritage status for Murujuga. 

The 2022 letter was sent to the government after Cooper addressed the 15th Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous People at the UN to press her case about the impact of industrial development in the Burrup Peninsula. 

It was then included in the report was provided to the UNESCO panel which announced its draft decision on 29 May to defer World Heritage status for Murujuga until the Australian government has addressed the impact of industrial emissions on Murujuga's ancient rock art.  

Having heard Cooper's evidence, in 2022 the authors of the letter wrote: "Without prejudging the accuracy of these allegations, we express our most serious concern regarding the human rights and environmental impacts of this project. The burning of fossil fuels constitutes one of the human activities that has the largest impact on the Earth's climate. In this context, we remain preoccupied by the impact of fossil fuels exploitation in general, and this project in particular, on greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to the current climate crisis." 

"Murray Watt has said he is lobbying UNESCO to overturn this decision [to refuse the World Heritage listing].  

"The Australian government needs to take seriously the human rights violations the UN alleges are occurring at Murujuga, including the impacts to human health and to the rock art from acid rain," said Cooper. 

As previously reported, Watt has given his conditioned approval to Woodside for their application to extend the life of their North West Shelf project – a decision which came just after the UN body's draft decision was announced.  

In an interview earlier this month with the AFR, Hicks hit out at Cooper and insisted locals, their culture and Woodside could co-exist in the area.  

"These are the people that are using our inscription, our nomination, as a political tool for their own political agenda," he said.  

"They are the ones that are putting the nomination at risk. They're the ones that are doing the damage. For whatever reason, they want to draw their political agendas, don't use our nomination."