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Question for someone in Australia?

Travel Info
I work on a number of issues regarding the preservation and protection of true Native American burial and ceremonial sites. All to often developers will attempt to circumvent laws and literally bulldoze thousands of years of history away to build a bunch of condos. There are laws in the U.S., both federal and at state levels to protect and preserve this important history of our nation. The U.S. goverment has a federal law called NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) In fact, we currently have a developer in our state that wants to destroy over 300 Native American burial mounds, level the land, remove all the trees and artifacts and then build 122 homes.
I would like to know if your country has any provisions for protecting and preserving the artifacts and history of your aboriginal peoples? If you could tell me what kinds of laws you may have, I would be most grateful. Or any relevant websites.

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Yes we have such legislation and have done for decades. Some regions have what are called "Sacred Sites" which are not usually burial grounds, rather they are sites in legend, or were significant in other ways. In many cases but by no means all, aboriginal people "buried" their dead in trees having wrapped the deceased in bark or other covering. This of course depended on the environment. Coastal people often used beach burial. The Yahoo search box gives 29,600 hits for' "Sacred sites" Australia legislation'

Here is the site for the "Department of Families, Community Services & Indigenous Affairs".

http://www.facs.gov.au/

Most Australian legislation, regulations and even recent parliamentary debates can be found on the net. Happy Searching!

Edit. The general attitude to this is neutral or vaguely favorable, but in isolated cases there has been controversy, the Hindmarsh Island bridge affair 20 years ago was a pretty dubious exercise. The Wikipedia article cited below tells only about half the story.

It mainly affects the mining industry, in some cases aboriginal groups have initially given permission, later denied. In one or two cases it seems that the groups have been "got at" in the meantime by the more loony end of the environmental movement. (This may have been the case at Hindmarsh Island). In at least one other it looks as if the group that initially gave permission was supplanted after two or three years by another.

Very recently, like within the past few weeks the Federal Government has moved to take more control in some aboriginal communities because of (long standing) sexual and physical abuse of children, alcoholism, drug use, petrol/gasoline sniffing, school truanting, unemployment, welfare dependency and general degradation.

Something like this has been overdue for years but there is a Federal election due within a few months. The present Federal government looks like being kicked out and are scrabbling for votes. The Prime Minister might even lose his seat (yay).

This is actually confined to some fairly remote areas where resources are few and consequently employment opportunities are scarce. I'd guess it affects at the most about 6000 of Australia's more than 480,000 people who identify as aboriginal Australians, possibly half that number.

The sting in the tail of this action is provision for more Federal control of aboriginal land, a fact not lost on some aboriginal leaders. Source(s): http://www.theage.com.au/cgi-bin/common/...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hindmarsh_i...
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If a developer wants to build on any land it has to go through local council and government, which is already in place through a native title act (also) through federal government. But bottom line is any aboriginal can put their hand up and say 鈥業 was born there鈥?and stop the development going ahead therefore costing heaps of money and they give up on it.
More info on Native titles go to http://www.nntt.gov.au

my partner is aborignal and told me this.
Everyone above me has it sport on but I just have to say to 'moptop', the Northern Territory is NOT A STATE, its a Territory!!

Back to the point, If anyone wants to develop in anyway shape or form anywhere in Australia, you generally have to go through local council and then they give the public something like 30-60 days depending on the type of develepment (homes to 5-star hotel) to put in any objections/support to the project then the council goes through them one by one and if they come accross a major issue that someone had brought up, then the develpment is held for longer.
Hi,You concern yourself about America and
your own back yard and let Australians worry about ourselves.
So what they build on graves,when you are dead you are dead,ashes to ashes dust to dust.
Its not what happens to you when you die is "Will you be with the Lord" that's what matters. Waltz
check out redland shire or any shire in the s.e. corner of queensland. the elected councillors at town, city and state government are all pro development & have received huge campaign donations from land developers to get elected. nothing stands in the way of development - whether aboriginal bora rings, resident's health, koalas/wildlife - or so called environmental protection laws.
www.rag.org.au/parrwag/goahead...
http://redland.yourguide.com.au/detail.a...