In November 2022, the Australian government made a commitment to legislate new protections of Indigenous heritage sites. The decision was made in response to recommendations passed down by a joint parliamentary committee investigation into Rio Tinto’s destruction of an Aboriginal sacred site at Juukan Gorge in 2020.
The sacred site, located in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, was of high cultural and archaeological significance. It contained evidence of continuous human occupation for over 40,000 years.
