Recent examples of the damage or destruction of culturally significant Aboriginal sites and artefacts has led to a debate about the most appropriate legal tools for their protection. One recent success story wherein a creation 'story site' on Prince of Wales Island (Muralug) in the Torres Strait was protected from a safe harbour development, demonstrates that the courts are willing to step in and grant urgent protection.

NB. This article was originally published in the May 2021 edition of The Law Society of NSW's Law Society Journal (Issue 77).

In a legal first, Holman Webb has assisted an Indigenous group to obtain an injunction to protect a culturally sensitive story site on Muralug Island (Prince of Wales) from works proposed by the Torres Shire Council.  

As a result of this injunction, the site was able to be protected until other proceedings were able to be brought in the Planning and Environment Court against a development approved by the Council at the Pearl Harbour site on Muralug Island.