Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01354:body:0:p110
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01354
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 313811–316753

is now the park, as sanctuaries for a nomadic people who had virtually no contact with white people. Despite this initiative, small parties of prospectors continued to visit the area and from 1936 were joined by the first tourists. A number of the oldest people now living at Uluṟu can recall meetings and incidents associated with white visitors during this period. Some of that contact was violent and engendered a fear of white authority. From the 1940s the two main reasons for permanent and substantial European settlement in the region were Aboriginal welfare policy and the promotion of tourism
 at Uluṟu. These two endeavours, sometimes in harmony and sometimes in conflict, have determined the relationships between Europeans and Aṉangu.

 Road access to Uluṟu was established in response to increasing tourism interest in the region. Tour bus services began in the early 1950s and later an airstrip, several motels and a camping ground were built at the base of Uluṟu. In 1958, in response to pressures to support tourism enterprises, the area that is now the park was excised from the Petermann Aboriginal Reserve to be managed by the Northern Territory Reserves Board as the Ayers Rock–Mount Olga National Park. The first ranger was the legendary Central Australian figure Bill Harney.

 Post-war assimilation policies assumed that Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people had begun a rapid and irreversible transition into mainstream Australian society and would give up their nomadic lifestyle, moving to specific Aboriginal settlements developed by welfare authorities for this purpose. However, Aṉangu continued to travel widely over their homelands, pursuing ceremonial life, visiting kin, and hunting and collecting food.

 In 1964 pastoral subsidies in the region were revoked, forcing large numbers of Aṉangu off pastoral leases and increasing the numbers of Aṉangu residing at Uluṟu. By the early 1970s Aṉangu found their traditional country unprecedentedly accessible with roads, vehicles, radio communications and an extended network of settlements. At a time of major change in government policies, new approaches to welfare promoting economic self-sufficiency for Aboriginal people began to conflict with the then prevailing park management policies. The Ininti Store was established in 1972 as an Aboriginal enterprise offering supplies and services to tourists and this became the centre of a permanent Aṉangu community within the park – Muṯitjulu (for more information on the history of Muṯitjulu refer to Section 4.2 Muṯitjulu community).

 The ad hoc development of tourism infrastructure adjacent to the base of Uluṟu that began in the 1950s soon produced adverse environmental impacts. It was decided in the early 1970s to remove all accommodation related tourist facilities and re-establish them outside the park. In 1975 a reservation of 104 square kilometres of land beyond the park's northern boundary, 15