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Determined to be ignorant: the drongos who climb Uluru

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Most people wouldn't defecate on the shrine to unknown soldiers at the Australian War Memorial, picnic in front of the Mona Lisa, scale the spire of St Mary's Cathedral or urinate on the wailing wall in Jerusalem.

These are sacred or special places, maybe not to us individually but to others with different beliefs and cultures that we respect.

But every day as many as one in three visitors to Uluru disregard the traditional owners' requests to keep off the rock – a deeply spiritual place to them – and climb this sacred site, which should be as special to white Australians as it is to its Indigenous owners.

Even if you have never read or heard anything about Uluru before, it is hard to miss the signs in English and other languages at the base urging visitors to stay off the rock and on the ground.

Yet right behind several signs blocking the entry to the climb, visitors inch their way up the steep ridge that takes them to the top.

As I looked up on a recent visit, it was hard not to see the vertical line of climbers as one giant finger of disrespect for Indigenous culture.

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Parks Australia's research shows the numbers of climbers is falling, but at an excruciatingly slow rate.

A decade ago, 38 per cent of visitors climbed. Despite decades of entreaties urging visitors not to climb, the number who choose to climb is now 20 to 30 per cent. Only when climbers fall below 20 per cent of all visitors will the 12-member board that manages the park, and which includes eight Indigenous representatives, decide whether to close the climb permanently.

Who climbs? I could be rude and say drongos.

Parks Australia is far more polite. About two thirds of those who climb are Australians (reflecting the fact that two thirds of visitors are locals). Men were more likely to climb than women, young more likely than old, and Japanese visitors four times more likely to climb than Germans.

Once the climbers reach the top, 348 metres above the plain, many picnic. Others are caught short because there are no toilets.

An Indigenous park ranger showing me around the base of the rock said he regularly scaled it to check the handrails were secure for those who insisted on climbing. He also had to remove rubbish and clean up the mess people had left behind.

"Some do ones and twos up there," he says. "Often they use their T-shirts or whatever they have to clean up ... and then leave those behind."

Gross. Our tour group groaned as one.

Uluru has been recognised as a world heritage site by Unesco not once but, unusually, twice. The first time was in 1987 for its "natural beauty". In 1994, it was recognised for "manifesting the interaction between humankind and its natural environment".

The Anangu, the traditional owners, believe the rock's scars and indents tell the dreamtime story of Kuniya, the sand python, the Mala (hare-wallaby), the Linga (sand-lizard) and Tjinderi-tjinderiba (willy-wagtail woman).

It is impossible not to see these dreamtime animals bounding across the rock's planes during the 10-kilometre walk around the base.

To climb the rock takes a determination to be ignorant of those Australians who cared for this country for 65,000 years before white man arrived.

Seeing people continue to ignore the wishes of the locals was a reminder of the need to move quickly to change the constitution to recognise that Aboriginal sovereignty is a spiritual notion.

The Uluru Statement of the Heart – written on Anangu lands nearby – asked how was it possible that its "peoples possessed a land for 60 millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last 200 years".

"We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish.

"They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country," it said.

Walking around Uluru is to walk in their world. That's a gift to all Australians. Climbing it is an insult.

Julie Power is a Fairfax Media journalist.

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