Look after historic and cultural sites
Many national parks contain Aboriginal sites, places and relics. These include rock engravings, rock art, fish traps, carved trees, stone arrangements and spiritual sites. They may be important to Aboriginal people for social, spiritual, historical, and commemorative reasons. Many Aboriginal people have deep spiritual and emotional ties to Aboriginal sites.
Aboriginal sites and places can be very fragile due to constant weathering and natural erosion. If you come across an Aboriginal site, please take care of it by:
- leaving rocks, artefacts and vegetation as you find them
- avoiding hand or foot contact with the site
- not regrooving or chalking the site or drawing on it
- not placing water or sand on the site.
You'll also find plenty of Australia's heritage since colonisation in national parks. Historic places include homesteads, yards, fences, mines, quarries, huts, forts, monuments and even landscapes created by different land-use practices.
- When visiting a historic place, you can help protect it by:
- leaving the historic place, its landscape and any vegetation undisturbed
- leaving artefacts as you find them - they indicate how the site was used
- obeying any rules when visiting huts or other historic buildings, and leaving them clean for other visitors.
More information
- Find out more about Aboriginal sites
- Explore some of the stories of history, landscapes and people in national parks.