Australia took steps to ban mining at an Indigenous site surrounded by Kakadu National Park, which is home to one of the world’s largest deposits of high-grade uranium.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the heritage-listed national park would be extended to include the Jabiluka site, which has long been in the sights of mining companies seeking to exploit it against the wishes of its Indigenous custodians, the Mirarr people.
- The Jabiluka site drew particular attention in 2017 when archaeologists discovered a buried trove of stone axes and tools nearby, dating them at tens of thousands of years old.
- The Jabiluka site became the focus of intense legal wrangling between the Mirarr people and mining companies after the uranium deposit was discovered there in the early 1970s.
- The move by the Australian government to protect Jabiluka comes after mining company Rio Tinto blew up the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelters in Western Australia’s Pilbara region in 2020.
