Kakadu National Park, World Heritage Site in Australia

Located in the far north of the Australian continent is Kakadu National Park. It has been inhabited for more than 40,000 years and is considered a place where Aboriginal memories remain from the prehistoric era of hunting to the present, including rock murals. The park is also valued as a natural heritage site with other natural heritage values such as mangrove forests, flood plains, savannas, and other landscapes and habitats of unique flora and fauna, and the park is valued as a composite heritage site.

Here, a World Heritage enthusiast explains why Kakadu National Park is a World Heritage Site in an easy-to-understand manner.Read this and you will definitely learn more about Kakadu National Park!

What is Kakadu National Park?

Kakadu National Park is located in the Northern Territory, a Territory in northern Australia. This is the largest national park in Australia. People have lived here for more than 40,000 years, and the area is famous for its rock murals painted thousands of years ago. These were painted before the Ice Age, and are valuable materials that show the hunting, social structure, and religious rituals that were practiced at that time during the transition period from the Pleistocene (2.58 million to 10,000 years ago) to the Holocene (10,000 years ago to the present).

Kakadu National Park offers diverse views of savannas, flood plains, and mangrove forests.In particular, the floodplain, formed by changes in sea level and heavy flooding during each rainy season, is a point of appreciation for the effects of climate change. And the park is also characterized by its diverse flora.

The Aboriginal people still live here and continue to lead a traditional lifestyle. Like Uluru Kata Tjuta Park, the land is recognized as belonging to the Aboriginal people, and the Australian government leases ownership and operates the park.

Rock mural

The most famous of all are the “rock murals” painted by indigenous peoples, of which more than 3,000 have been discovered, each with a different animal or theme motif depending on the period. The murals are painted using a unique technique called X-ray painting, which makes them look like X-rays. Various rock murals from 20,000 years ago to the 20th century remain, especially in Ubirr in the eastern part of the country. Other famous ones are those of Nourlangie Rock.

Animals

The park covers 19,804 square kilometers and has a variety of natural environments. More than 1,600 species of plants inhabit the park.Animals include 123 species of reptiles, including the Irie crocodile, famous as the “man-eating crocodile,” and 60 species of mammals, including wallabies.More than one-third of the bird species found in Australia can be seen here, making it famous as a place for superb birdwatching.

For what reason is Kakadu National Park on the World Heritage List?

Kakadu National Park was recognized for

Registration Criteria (i)
That the rock murals at Kakadu depict humans and animals in a very unique way.

Registration Criteria (vi)
The point is that the rock murals and ruins prove that the Aboriginal hunting tradition is alive and well from prehistoric times to the present.

Registration Criteria (vii)
Kakadu National Park is a Ramsar site, which means you can see wetlands and spectacular cliffs.

Registration Criteria (ix)
The natural fauna and flora of the park are not influenced by humans and have evolved in their own unique way.

Registration Criteria (x)
The park is home to more than one-third of Australia’s bird species, a quarter of its mammal species, and more, meaning that it protects a very large number of plants and animals.

Conclusions and Impressions of a World Heritage Maniac

There are many points of interest that are valued more as natural heritage, but the rock murals, after all, have a high artistic value in the history of mankind.Another point is that the Aboriginal traditions that continue to this day live on here, and the various natural environments and many of the animals that live in Australia can be seen.

Incidentally, the rock painting in the thumbnail, drawn using the X-ray method, looks like a frog, but it is actually a kangaroo, which must have been recognized as such a unique animal that it was used as the theme of the painting from that time.

*The contents here are considerations derived through research by World Heritage enthusiasts.As for the data, interpretation differs depending on the media.