A new plan to make an NSW national park ‘men only’ is being protested by indigenous women who have sacred sites on the land.
The plan to ban women from the Wollumbin national park in NSW, also known as Mount Warning, was met with opposition by indigenous women who called the plan discriminatory and decried it for keeping Ngarakbal Githabul women from accessing spiritual sites.
“Therefore gender restrictions apply to working on or visiting the Wollumbin Mountain,” the plan states.
One aspect the plan fails to address is that the area contains, “several women’s sites associated with Wollumbin AP that are integral to its cultural value”.
In addition, the plan states that the “sanctity” of Wollumbin AP “may also manifest physically”, such as making people sick or putting women in “physical danger”.
“For example if women access areas that are restricted to men, women are in physical danger and likewise for men,” the plan asserts.
The site was declared as an Aboriginal place above 600 meters in 2014 and was recently announced to be permanently closing to the public Minister for Environment, James Griffin.
The document states that the cultural and spiritual values of the site cannot be upheld if the public continues to have access to them, “particularly due to the restrictions of gender as this is a men’s place”.
“Wollumbin is interconnected to a broader cultural and spiritual landscape that includes Creation, Dreaming stories and men’s initiation rites of deep antiquity,” the group said.
“Bundjalung beliefs illustrate the spiritual values embodied and evoked in Wollumbin and its connections to a broader cultural landscape.”
“These connections are important to the spiritual identity of the Bundjalung nation, many other nations and families connected to Wollumbin, predominantly men and also women.”
However, Ngarakbal Githabul women say that placing male-only gender restrictions on the site discriminates against indigenous women who also share a cultural and spiritual connection with the area.
A North Coast indigenous woman, Stella Wheildon, said she has conducted heavy research on the area and has found ties between the area and the Ngarakbal Githabul people.
“The Wollumbin Consultative Group has discriminated against the women and our lores,” Wheildon said.
Wheildon also said she has been contacted by other Ngarakbal Githabul women who have expressed worry that they would no longer be able to access “their most sacred Rainbow Serpent Seven Sisters sites” under the new plan.
Elder Elizabeth Davis Boyd, whose tribal name is Eelemarni, said that she would no longer be able to visit her mother’s memorial under the new plans.
Boyd told The Daily Telegraph that calling Mount Warning a “Bundjalung men’s site” was incorrect and was “doing great damage to my ancestral culture, tradition, and lores.”
“The State Government’s administrative decision to permanently close Mount Warning not only contravenes my customary law rights and women’s rights and human rights – but also my cultural responsibilities to the Gulgan (a Ngarakbal Githabul word for pathway keeper) memorial,” Boyd said.
