Sharing the sky and stars
An indigenous land use agreement has been signed and registered for the site of the Australian Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope. Departmental officials celebrated this milestone on Saturday 5 November with:
- the Wajarri Yamaji community
- the Western Australian Minister for Aboriginal Affairs
- CSIRO.
The agreement ensures that construction of the Australian SKA telescope will respect and protect the heritage of the Wajarri Yamaji lands in Western Australia.
The agreement also ensures the Wajarri Yamaji community will benefit from the SKA project for generations to come. Benefits include:
- funding for community development and infrastructure upgrades
- new apprenticeships
- extra resources for education.
The observatory is now known as the Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara / Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory. This name means ‘sharing the sky and stars’. The Wajarri community announced this following a competition.
Construction of the SKA can start now the land use agreement has been registered with the National Native Title Tribunal.
We look forward to sharing the construction journey of this truly global project.