Right: a line of climbers reaches from bottom to top of Uluru at peak tourism periods.
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Arguments against tourists climbing Uluru
1. Uluru's traditional owners do not want the rock climbed
Uluru was returned to its traditional Anangu owners in 1985, and they subsequently leased it back to the federal government for 99 years. Today the park is jointly managed through a board of management composed of representatives from local Indigenous communities and Parks Australia.
Uluru is sacred and a place of great knowledge for the Anangu people. Traditional owners believe ancestral beings travelled across the lands in a process of formation and destruction that gave rise to the existing landscapes. The ancestral beings are in the form of people, plants and animals.
The Anangu believe these landscapes are still inhabited by the spirits of those ancestral beings, which they refer to as Tjukuritja or Waparitja. There are many creation stories associated with Uluru that are kept by the Anangu people.
Under traditional law climbing Uluru is not permitted and the Anangu people request visitors respect their law and not climb. Instead the Anangu invite visitors to walk around the base of Uluru to discover an appreciation and deeper understanding of this unique place in the world.
At the base of the climb the Anangu have erected a sign which reads 'Our traditional law teaches us the proper way to behave. We ask you to respect our law by not climbing Uluru. What visitors call the climb is the traditional route taken by our traditional Mala men on their arrival at Uluru in the creation time. It has great spiritual significance.'
Another concern of the traditional owners is the safety risk to climbers. On the Parks Australia Internet there is the following statement from the traditional owners: 'The climb is not prohibited but we ask you to respect our law and culture by not climbing Uluru.
We have a responsibility to teach and safeguard visitors to our land. The climb can be dangerous. Too many people have died while attempting to climb Uluru. Many others have been injured while climbing. We feel great sadness when a person dies or is hurt on our land. We worry about you and we worry about your family. Our traditional law teaches us the proper way to behave.'
2. Other cultures' sacred sites are respected
There are those who see the climbing of Uluru as a sign of disrespect for Aboriginal culture. They contrast this behaviour with the respect given the sacred sites of other cultures.
The tourist information site, Traveller, contains a comment posted by Ben Groundwater on May 8, 2016, and titled 'Climbing Uluru: how is this still a thing?' and subtitled 'Climbing Uluru is akin to trampling across an altar in the Vatican'.
Groundwater observes, 'In pretty much every other country in the world, tourists will be asked to show some form of respect to a local culture or religion.
They will be asked to dress in long, often hot clothing in some Middle Eastern countries. They will be asked to remove their hats when they enter a church in Europe. They will be asked to remain silent in tombs. They will be told that non-believers can't enter certain parts of a temple.
And the reaction to those requests, pretty much across the board, is to respect the local people's wishes.'
The conclusion Ben Groundwater draws from the continued climbing of Uluru, despite the traditional owners' objections, is 'Aboriginal culture and spirituality is not taken seriously. Worldwide. Still.'
A similar point was made by Harry Hobbs in an opinion piece published on April 18, 2016, in The New Matilda. Hobbes stated, 'The case of Uluru is simple. Just as non-Indigenous Australians would not countenance destruction of a Christian church in order to promote tourism, nor should we allow the desecration of a site sacred to the Anangu people, no matter what the apparent economic benefit.'
A comment made by former Northern Territory tour guide Chris Watson and republished by Crikey on April 21, 2016, also makes comparisons with the manner in which tourists treat other sacred sites.
Watson states, 'At mosques, synagogues and chapels around the world, there are entreaties and expectations regarding decorous behaviour, respectful reverence and various clothing prohibitions or stipulations...
Surely a reasonable person wouldn't kick a football around in a church or wear dirty shoes in a mosque, would they?'
In a comment published by SBS on April 20, 2016, Ben McLeay likened climbing Uluru to 'Skateboarding the ANZAC memorial'; 'Doing paintball in the National Gallery of Australia'; 'Hosting music festivals in cemeteries' and 'Being naked in Church'.
3. Uluru is unsafe to climb
Opponents of climbing Uluru, including the traditional owners of the area, have stressed the dangers that are associated with the climb.
Some 36 people have died climbing Uluru, the first in 1958, the latest in 2010. The 2010 fatality involved a 54-year-old Victorian man who died while climbing the rock. The man was nearly at the top when he started feeling ill and tried to get down. Police investigators claim he then collapsed 160 metres from the bottom and died despite efforts to revive him.
Parks Australia closed the climb for the rest of the day 'out of respect' for the man and again the following day 'because of high winds'. There is no simple health check that can be applied to ensure that only those fit to climb do so. The most recent fatality had no history of heart disease.
Climbing the rock is dangerous as, apart from high temperatures, there are sheer drops, strong winds and few guards. Uluru is 348 metres high, which, Outback Australia Travel Guide notes, is the equivalent of a 95 storey building. The climbing path is about 1.6 km long and can be treacherous. Only the first part has a chain to hold on to. It is a strenuous climb and takes about two hours to complete.
Most of the 36 reported deaths climbing Uluru have been due to heart attacks. The rock climb is often off limits because of heat, rain, wind or indigenous ceremonies. It was open for only 55 whole days in 2009 and 36 in 2008.
There have also been numerous injuries among tourist climbing Uluru, and rescues can be difficult to affect. The 2015 rescue of a 27-year-old tourist who fell 20 metres down a crevice and had to be left on the rock overnight involved rescue workers abseiling 200 metres down the rock and securing the tourist onto a stretcher which was then dragged back up to the helicopter. The man suffered a broken leg and facial injuries.
4. Climbing Uluru causes ecological damage
Critics of the climb being allowed have stressed the damaging environmental impact it is having on Uluru.
The entire Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is subject to environmental damage as a result of the impact of tourism. The Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Knowledge for Tour Guides Handbook states, ' Erosion along walking and vehicle tracks, the spreading of weeds, damage to vegetation, degradation of the area around visitor sites, uncontrolled bushfires, rubbish and toilet paper in the bush or in waterholes and the removal of artefacts - all these things impact on the natural environmental of the park.'
The rock itself is particularly vulnerable to the impact of such behaviours. In 2013, Kerrie Bennison, then natural and cultural resources manager of the Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park, told Guardian Australia that the climb was inflicting irreparable environmental damage on the site. Ms Bennison stated, 'The scar that it leaves, you can see from being here. The path is worn and it's a very obvious impact from having lots of feet up and down it each time.'
The Parks Australia Internet site treating Uluru states, 'The climb is damaging Uluru. You can see the climb has been worn smooth, eroded by the millions of footsteps climbers have taken since the 1950s. Each step a climber takes changes the face of Uluru.
There are no toilets on top of Uluru and no soil to dig a hole. You can imagine what happens many times a day when the climb is open. When it rains, everything gets washed off the rock and into waterholes, polluting the water for the many plants and animals found in the park.'
The Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Knowledge for Tour Guides Handbook states, 'When it rains, everything gets washed off the rock and into the waterholes where precious animals such as reptiles, birds, and frogs live and depend on that water. A water quality study at Uluru has found significantly higher bacterial levels in the waterholes fed by runoff from the climb site, compared to those further away.'
5. The agreed conditions to end climbing Uluru have been met
In 2010, the Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park board of management - which includes traditional owners from within the region and Parks Australia representatives (traditional owners make the majority of the board) - released an updated management plan. This included a commitment to close the Uluru climb once the number of climbers dropped below 20% of the total number of park visitors.
Although the numbers appear to have fallen below the 20% threshold, there is currently no plan in place to close the climb, as the hurdles for closure have been changed again since the plan's publication.
Chris Martin, manager of visitor and tourism services for the park, said climb counters had been installed on the top of the rock to measure the number of people partaking in the climb. Martin said, 'It's measuring less than 20% of people visiting the park.' That evidence is reinforced by two surveys of 636 people in total, undertaken by Parks Australia in 2012, which indicated around 17% of visitors had climbed or intended to climb.
Around three-quarters of visitors in 1990 climbed, falling to 52% in 1995, and 38% of visitors in 2006. Further research undertaken by Parks Australia over a three-year period concluded that 98% of visitors to the park would not be put off if the climb were closed.
Previously the management plan contained three triggers for closing the climb. It explicitly stated that only one of the three requirements needed to be met before climb closure should start. Now it appears that all three, with the other two being the installation of new visitor experiences and ensuring natural and cultural experiences were the key reasons for tourists visiting the park, need to be met before the climb will be closed. The management plan says 18 months' notice should be given to the tourism industry before closure.