The four-page guide, Aboriginal Heritage Protection in the Goldfields-Esperance Region, highlights the importance of good-quality heritage surveys as the way to avoid time consuming and costly delays.

Council chief executive officer, Brian Wyatt, said “The GLSC and indigenous people from Goldfields-Esperance share with proponents the desire for prompt, orderly establishment of development projects. No-one wants half-baked surveys that have consulted with the wrong people, requiring that proponents have to re-do them.

“To minimise the chance of damaging Aboriginal sites a proponent should conduct a heritage survey, in collaboration with recognised, bona fide Aboriginal people from the area.

“The first step is to enter a formal heritage agreement, so that the miner, the traditional owners and the heritage consultants each have clarity about the heritage processes that need to be followed,” Mr Wyatt said.

In the Goldfields-Esperance region the GLSC was best placed to advise explorers and miners on heritage matters surveys, he said.

“We are dealing with heritage surveys and Aboriginal people’s approval of mining and exploration tenement applications on a daily basis. With over 20-years experience as a native title representative body and representing Aboriginal people in the Federal Court, the GLSC has gathered substantial ethnographic, historical and archaeological data for the whole region and has an extensive network of contacts.

“Of particular value is the GLSC’s knowledge about which individuals and groups speak for which parts of ‘country’,” Mr Wyatt said.

For information on Aboriginal heritage issues and surveys contact GLSC heritage anthropologists Russ Barrett and Beth Woodward on 9091 1661.