Australia lodges world heritage submission for 50,000-year-old Burrup Peninsula rock art

Damage caused by industrial development could undermine efforts to achieve recognition for WA's Murujuga cultural landscape, the country's largest collection of rock art

The decades-long campaign to secure world heritage listing for Australia's largest collection of rock art has finally been taken to Unesco.

The federal government on Friday lodged a submission for the Murujuga cultural landscape on Western Australia's Burrup Peninsula to be included on Australia's world heritage tentative list, the first formal step toward achieving global recognition for the 50,000-year-old gallery of more than one million petroglyphs.