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Right: The mysterious crevices and caves at Uluru add to the fascination held by tourists, foreign and domestic, for The Rock.

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Arguments in favour of banning climbing Uluru

1. The traditional owners see climbing Uluru as the violation of a sacred site
The principal reason offered for not climbing Uluru is that it offends the traditional owners, the Anangu people, for whom Uluru is a sacred site.
Sammy Wilson, chairman of t he Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park board of management, when announcing that the climb would be prohibited from October 26, 2019, stated, 'The climb is a men's sacred area. The men have closed it. It has cultural significance that includes certain restrictions...' Climbing route follows a sacred ceremonial path traditionally used by the Mala men, and it is against the wishes of the local indigenous people for tourists to undertake the climb.
Though it is not possible to explain to non-Indigenous people the full significance of the rock for its traditional owners, not climbing Uluru is demanded out of respect for the Indigenous creation myth, Tjukurpa, which refers to the period when ancestral beings are believed to have created the world.
' Tjukurpa includes everything: the trees; grasses; landforms; hills; rocks and all. You have to think in these terms; to understand that country has meaning that needs to be respected. If you walk around here you will learn this and understand. If you climb you won't be able to...
We work on the principle of mutual obligation, of working together, but this requires understanding and acceptance of the climb closure because of the sacred nature of this place. '
Prior to the announcement of the impending ban on climbing, the Anangu have repeatedly requested that the rock not be climbed. Kunmanara, another traditional owner, has expressed very much the same view as Sammy Wilson, stating, 'That's a really important sacred thing that you are climbing... You shouldn't climb. It's not the real thing about this place. And maybe that makes you a bit sad. But anyway that's what we have to say. We are obliged by Tjukurpa to say. And all the tourists will brighten up and say, "Oh I see. This is the right way. This is the thing that's right. This is the proper way: no climbing."'
Currently a huge signboard at the base of the climb reads, ' We, the traditional Anangu owners, have this to say. Uluru is sacred in our culture, a place of great knowledge. Under our traditional law, climbing is not permitted. This is our home. Please don't climb.'

2. Climbing Uluru is dangerous
One of the principal reasons climbing Uluru is to be banned is that the climb is dangerous and has resulted in death and injury. Thirty-six people have been recorded to have died attempting to climb Uluru since records began in 1958. Most deaths on Uluru are due to cardiac arrest, while some are the result of falls.
Parks Australia's Internet site informs potential visitors, ' At 348 metres, Uluru is higher than the Eiffel Tower... The climb is very steep and can be very slippery. It can be very hot at any time of the year and strong wind gusts can hit the summit or slopes at any time. Every year people are rescued by park rangers, many suffering serious injuries such as broken bones, heat exhaustion and extreme dehydration.'
The travel site, Australian Traveller, offers similar warnings, 'Unfit tourists often underestimate the task, and the chain along the climbing route is inadequate for the steep and sometimes slippery surface.
The 95-storey climb is often closed anyway due to wind, storm, and over the hot summer months (or temperatures above 36øC).'
In 1964, during a camping holiday with friends, Penny Campbell from Victoria climbed the rock. She has since been quoted as saying, '[The climb] was very, very dramatic... absolutely frightening, so steep. It was terrifying coming back down as well. It's undulating and you could get lost so easily, and you could fall over the side into a cavern inside. It's very dangerous.'
The most recent death occurred in April, 2010, when a 54-year-old Victorian collapsed and died near the base on his way down. As recently as September, 2016, three 23-year-old climbers were dislodged from a crevice after an 11-hour rescue effort. The three men reportedly went off the regular path. While in June, 2015, a 27-year-old Taiwanese tourist fell down a crevice high on the rock and had to be airlifted to safety.
Parks Australia stress the dangers associated with the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park even without climbing the rock. Their Internet site states, 'There is a risk of serious heat-related incidents around the base of Uluru due to excessively high temperatures over the summer period (October to March). For visitor safety, portions of the Uluru base walk will be closed in high risk areas, where extreme heat and exposure is the greatest.'
The traditional owners have further stated on the Park management site, '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.'
Reinforcing the traditional owners' safety concerns, Keith Aitken, a 61-year-old elder of the Mutitjulu community, has stated, 'Seeing people up top scares me. I'm looking at people about to get hurt. With us mob, when people hurt themselves while climbing Uluru it makes us feel no good. It's like if you woke up to find someone dead in your backyard. How would that make you feel?'

3. Climbing Uluru causes environmental damage
A major reason for banning the climbing of Uluru is the ecological and environmental damage the climb causes.
Melbourne-based ecologist, Chris Watson, has worked in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park area for 10 years, first as a tour guide then an ecologist. Mr Watson has stated, 'There are many reasons why climbing is inadvisable, but from an ecological point of view there are no toilet facilities or bins at the top. So there's an accumulation of human excrement, toilet paper, sanitary items, nappies and god knows what else. Rubbish accumulates and when it rains it gets funnelled down into the waterholes below.'
Andrew Simpson, the general manager of a tour company run by Indigenous people in Alice Springs, has stated, 'And then there are the environmental issues of the rubbish and people defecating on top of the rock and polluting the waterholes around Uluru.'
Mr Simpson has explained, 'Basically it can take you quite a while to get up there and there are no facilities up there. So when nature calls you must do what nature needs you to do.'
Researchers from Newcastle University are investigating whether bacteria left from human excrement at the top of Uluru is affecting local wildlife populations. In 2009, Professor Brian Timms, of the University of New South Wales, announced that his research had indicated that human waste was altering the populations of rare invertebrates on the rock, including the localised extinction of one species of fairy shrimp.
Also of concern is the impact that climbing and the pollution caused by climbers may be having on the region's frogs. The death of frogs at Mutitjulu waterhole noted in 2011 has concerned Parks Australia and monitoring has been undertaken on the four waterholes at the base of Uluru to determine what is causing these fatalities.
In 2013, Kerrie Bennison, a natural and cultural resources manager of the park, stated that the climb was also inflicting irreparable physical damage on the site. Bennison observed, '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.'

There is visible erosion along the historic climbing route which is now known as the 'Scar of Uluru.'
A recent federal government report on the impact of global warming on Australia's World Heritage areas has suggested that Uluru is susceptible to damage. There are likely to be temperature increases, more frequent droughts, extreme weather events and flash flooding and wildfires. All these developments will impact on the surrounding area and the rock itself. Climate change will have some effect on the morphology of the region, including increasing what is referred to as 'cavernous weathering'. Cavernous weathering may form solitary cavities or pseudo-regular structures of cavities separated by walls on the surface of rocks. This latter is sometimes referred to as 'honeycomb weathering'.

Some critics have argued that these climate stressors mean that attempts should be made to reduce human impacts on the rock.

4. Tourism in the area no longer relies on visitors climbing Uluru
Those who argue that Uluru should no longer be climbed contend that the tourism industry in the area is not dependent on climbing the rock.
The Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Management Plan 2010-2020 declares that, once the percentage of visitors climbing Uluru falls below 20 percent, climbing will be disallowed. Provision 6.3.3(c) states ' The climb will be permanently closed when: the Board, in consultation with the tourism industry, is satisfied that adequate new visitor experiences have been successfully established, or the proportion of visitors climbing falls below 20 per cent, or the cultural and natural experiences on offer are the critical factors when visitors make their decision to visit the park.'
This figure was set in the belief that alternate tourism attractions could be established and the climbing of the rock would cease to be a focus of visitor interest. A steady decline in the number of tourists climbing the rock in recent years has been seen by many as an indication that the climb no longer offers the appeal to visitors it once did. A decade ago (in 2007), 38 per cent of visitors climbed the rock. Recent figures provided to Fairfax Media indicate that about 20 per cent climbed.
Because of the unreliability of motion sensors used to count the number of climbers, a new and independent analysis was commissioned from statisticians at Griffith University. The Griffith University survey indicates that only 16 per cent of visitors to Uluru climb the rock. Reasons for the drop in the number of climbers are believed to include deference to local culture, as well as lack of interest in climbing and safety concerns.
The Parks Australia Internet site for the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park notes the other attractions available in the area. It states, ' We encourage all our visitors to think about the other great ways to experience Uluru - taking our daily ranger-guided walk, a cultural tour or dot painting workshop, discover the many surprising wonders of this landscape by taking our base walk right around Uluru, or taking on the challenge of the Valley of the Winds walk out at Kata Tjuta.'
The director of the Central Lands Council, David Ross, has argued that if fledgling Anangu tourism plans, especially in the vast Indigenous Protected Area surrounding the national park, receive the assistance they need from the federal government no one will miss the climb.
Sammy Wilson, chairman of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Board has stated, ' Visitors needn't be worrying there will be nothing for them with the climb closed because there is so much else besides that in the culture here. It's not just inside the park and if we have the right support to take tourists outside it will benefit everyone...
We have a lot to offer in this country. There are so many other smaller places that still have cultural significance that we can share publicly. So instead of tourists feeling disappointed in what they can do here they can experience the homelands with Anangu and really enjoy the fact that they learnt so much more about culture.'

5. Continuing to allow Uluru to be climbed is disrespectful of Indigenous beliefs
It is argued that allowing Uluru to be climbed against the expressed wishes of its traditional owners shows disrespect for Indigenous beliefs.
Sarah Reid, an English columnist writing for The Independent, has stated, 'I can accept that the cultural impact of clambering on the icon might be a little hazy for visitors with limited English skills, but given climbers come from all walks of life, there seems to be only one explanation as to why so many still do it: Indigenous culture is still not taken seriously, in Australia, or abroad. If it was, tourists would show the same unquestioning respect for local culture and customs that they do in other destinations, whether it be removing your hat to enter a church, avoiding certain parts of a temple or mosque if you are a woman or removing your shoes before entering someone's home. Locals would encourage it, and the government would enforce it.'
The same point was made by Julie Power in an opinion piece published in The Sydney Morning Herald on August 7, 2017. Power writes, ' Most people wouldn't defecate on the shrine to unknown soldiers at the Australian War Memorial, picnic in front of the Mona Lisa, scale the spire of St Mary's Cathedral or urinate on the wailing wall in Jerusalem.
These are sacred or special places, maybe not to us individually but to others with different beliefs and cultures that we respect.
But every day as many as one in three visitors to Uluru disregard the traditional owners' requests to keep off the rock - a deeply spiritual place to them - and climb this sacred site, which should be as special to white Australians as it is to its Indigenous owners...
As I looked up on a recent visit, it was hard not to see the vertical line of climbers as one giant finger of disrespect for Indigenous culture.'
Some climbers have made their lack of respect for the views of the rock's traditional owners flagrantly apparent. In 2010, French stripper, Alizee Sery, provoked controversy when she 'fulfilled a lifelong dream' to climb Uluru and stripped when she reached the top. While discussing Sery's strip on a Melbourne radio program in 2010, football personality Sam Newman revealed he had once hit a golf ball off Uluru. Australian director, Brian Trenchard-Smith, has since apologised for filming a kung-fu fight scene there in 1975. However, in 1986, Uluru was again filmed as a setting, this time for a children's storybook featuring a bear named Bromley. Park management tried unsuccessfully to stop the book being reprinted in 2003, ten years after it was first published.
Sammy Wilson, chairman of t he Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park board of management, has stated, ' Imagine if our mob went to Asia and started climbing on their temples? For us it is the same; Uluru is our sacred place. By climbing it you are disrespecting our culture. Why would you still do it when you know that?
At Uluru, Parks Australia has faced some particularly challenging years, as a decline in tourists - from 349,172 in 2005 to 257,761 in 2012 - caused revenue from the sale of entry tickets to fall.