Boat owners are threatening to defy a ban on accessing Australia’s biggest lake introduced by an Aboriginal group due to its ‘sacred value’.
A new management plan designed by the South Australian government and the Arabana Aboriginal Corporation bans all recreational access to the Lake Eyre basin.
Any form of physical access to the basin, including walking and swimming, will be prohibited while viewing will be allowed only from aircraft or from designated viewing platforms.
Lake Eyre is usually dry, but about once per decade there is enough floodwater to allow for boating, and the basin completely fills about four times per century.
The lake shows a pink hue as the water evaporates due to a pigment found in the salt-loving algae, Dunaliella salina.
The Lake Eyre Yacht Club represents boat users who travel to enjoy the rare wonder of the full lake in northern South Australia, and it is strongly opposed to future bans.
But National Parks and Wildlife Services programs manager Jason Irving said the ban was primarily about public safety.
‘Venturing out on the lake can be extremely dangerous because it is vast and has significantly variable weather conditions, which makes it easy to become disoriented and get lost,’ Mr Irving said.
Lake Eyre attracts up to 25,000 visitors in flood years, some five times more than usual
Visitors to Lake Eyre will be limited to viewing the site from the air or nearby viewing platforms
Lake Eyre Yacht Club commodore Bob Backway remains defiant, claiming he will challenge the ban and continue to sail on the lake when the waters arrive.
‘They can ban us all they like but we are going to defy it. Defying it is our best move. It’s worked in the past,’ he told The Australian.
‘Appealing it is absolutely no use because this current state government has got an agenda.’
Mr Backway told Daily Mail Australia the only evidence produced by the NPWS of environmental damage to the site was ‘footprints on the muddy shore’.
He added that all Australians have a cultural claim to the site, not only the Arabana people.
‘If you don’t know that Lake Eyre has been part of Australian culture since the 1950 flood you have been missing something,’ Mr Backway said.
‘The lake is as important to all Australians in the same way another icon, Ayers Rock, is.’
In a statement on its website, the Yacht Club says: ‘Australia is a multicultural society. Allowing one culture to completely control a National Park is discriminatory and divisive.
‘We have our own cultural heritage too. It feels like ours are the only voices that aren’t being listened to in this process.’
Mr Backway said club members are mindful of the environmental significance of the site.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said the ban was the latest in a campaign of ‘locking up’ significant sites
Former South Australian opposition leader David Speirs said bans should be a ‘last resort’
‘We are very careful when we sail not to disturb anything, we would never land on any islands where birds are nesting, we know what we are doing.’
For most days of the year, the 9,500 square kilometre Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre lake system is an unbroken stretch of dry outback.
When it floods every few years, the salt lake draws 25,000 visitors, five times as many in non-flooding years.
When the ban was first floated last year, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said the move was part of a broader attack on areas of national significance.
‘There’s this trend going on around our country, where we’re locking the place up from visitors being able to see our own backyard,’ she told 2GB Radio.
‘We’re shooting ourselves in the foot if we continue down this path where we’re going to limit access for the potential for tourism.’
Former South Australian opposition leader David Speirs meanwhile said closing sites to the public should ‘always be a last resort’.
‘It is only through safe and sensitive access to our national parks that we can truly give people an opportunity to understand nature and sites of scientific and cultural significance,’ he said.
The Arabana people’s native title rights over the region were recognised in 2012
‘Unproven lore and anecdotal stories should not be used to lock certain groups out of our natural environment based on race, if this becomes common practice, the outcome will see far less people enjoy and value our natural world.’
Social media users have echoed these concerns in the days since the ban was announced, claiming the public has an interest in accessing the country’s natural resources.
‘Lake Eyre is beautiful and a natural wonder,’ one user said.
‘To simultaneously ban us from exploring and enjoying our country is a crime.’
Another called the ban an ‘absurdity,’ adding residents will soon be unable to ‘venture anywhere in our country or it will cost us if we do’.
The Arabana people’s native title ownership over the land was first recognised by courts in 2012 following a 14-year legal battle.
The area, more than one-and-a-half times the size of Switzerland, is claimed by Arabana as being of sacred significance.
Following the native title determination, Arabana Aboriginal Corporation chairman Aaron Stuart told the Herald Sun he was ‘happy for people to come and enjoy this land and the lake, swim in it and see its beauty, but we do not want boats on the lake’.
The new management plan, devised in part by his group, appears to take the claim a step further in banning all physical access.
Asked what consequences might be in store for individuals who break the Lake Eyre access ban, a spokesperson for the SA Department for Environment and Water told Daily Mail Australia ‘recreational activities such as boating, swimming and driving have been prohibited on Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre since 1985’.
‘People who do so risk being fined or prosecuted under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972.’
NPWS SA and the Arabana Aboriginal Corporation were contacted by Daily Mail Australia.
