Environmental and Cultural Tourism: The Canning Stock Road

The Canning Stock Road is a major cultural heritage landscape in Australia that serves as a tourist destination. The tangible and intangible cultural heritage values, ownership and management of stakeholders, visitors' profiles, marketing strategies, cultural heritage sites and its tourism development, issues faced at a specific cultural-heritage location, and solutions to obtain sustainable outcomes are discussed in detail.

Environmental and
Cultural Tourism
The Canning stock Road

 The Canning Stock Road is one of the major cultural heritage
landscapes in Australia that serves as tourist destination
 It is one of the remote tracks that has started from Kimberley
region’s Halls Creek to Wiluna in the mid-west region of Australia.
 It is a historic stock route that stretches about more than 1850 kilo
meters.
 The Canning Stock Road includes the major cultural heritage sites
including the Tjurabalan, Ngurrara, Birriliburu, Martu and Wiluna.
 The Kimberley Land Council and agencies support the preservation
and protection of culture and heritage sites through acceptance of
indigenous ownership and cultural perspectives.
Introduction

Tangible heritage
 The Canning Stock Road stretches from Kimberley region’s Halls Creek
to Wiluna in Australian region.
 Kaalpi, also known as the Calvert Ranges hold cultural significance for
the Martu people. It is a tangible heritage though due to lack of
resources, the tourist load has been an issue to be taken care of.
 The deserts are represented by various archaeological sites that consist
of artefact scatters, grindstone stations, stone and rock shelters.
 Rock Art on the Canning Stock route is another tangible cultural
heritage
 Tjukurba Art gallery consisting of paintings by Birriliburu Artists is a
must visit for the tourists as well.
 The cultural values are managed by allowing he Aboriginal groups
holding the native title and thus any sort of access in the area without
permit has been prevented (Smith 2015).
Tangible or intangible cultural
heritage values

 The cultural heritage of the place is protected by allowing the
visitors to gain access to the Lake Gregory loop track and
also the campsites (Briassoulis and Van Der Straaten 2013).
Intangible cultural heritage
 Intangible cultural heritage means the things that cannot be
felt or do not have any physical presence
 The various artefacts, drawings and rocks present at the
Tjukurba Art Gallery are intangible cultural heritage
 Martumili artists present their drawings and designs on rocks
are open to all visitors for viewing
 Traditional skills of the artists and painters in Mangkaja Arts
agency in Fitzroy Crossing are considered as major cultural
heritage and are of significance of the tourists visiting there.
 Fauna and the rocky hills provide refuge to animals make the
place a good natural heritage.

Ownership
 The Aboriginal groups hold possession over the Canning Stock route
based on the native title deteremined at Martu, Birriliburu, Ngurrara,
etc.
 The Royal Commission has supported the Aboriginal people while the
Australian Government has been in control of the Canning Stock Route.
 The five Ranger Groups are responsible for managing the permit and
look after cultural site and conduct environmental management work
too.
 The Canning Stock Route is under protection from both the Australian
Government and by the regulatory agencies (Calabrò and Della Spina
2014).
 The diversity of the place is protected with the involvement of WA
Aboriginal Heritage Act, 1972 under the Government.
Analysis of ownership and
management of stakeholders

 The different stakeholders are responsible for managing
the cultural values and heritage of the place,
furthermore protect the environment and cultural
aspects of the place.
 Birriliburu rangers look after the place while Ngurrara
rangers manage the fauna monitoring.
 Paruku ranger teams are responsible for protecting the
environment and at the same time, improve the cultural
heritage of Canning Stock Route (Throsby 2016).
 The ranger teams manage the permits of tourists and
have designed new signs for covering the entire route
effectively.
Stakeholders

 The Canning Stock Route tourism has received more than
100000 visitors during the last two years.
 It is a place with extreme climatic conditions, so not much
people are visiting, still the numbers of visitors have increased
considerably due to the preservation of cultural heritage all
over the place.
 The Aboriginal people are present at this place who have used
their traditional skills to maintain the diversity of the place
 Presence of rich fauna and different kinds of rocks along with
paintings and architectures by the local people have attracted
tourists to visit this place often.
 The Royal Commission has used various measures to treat the
Aboriginal people staying there with dignity and prevent any
unfair trade activities (Boniface 2013).
Visitors’ profiles

 The marketing strategies are implemented for ensuring
that the tourists are aware of the weather conditions and
the cultural values that shall be maintained while visiting
Canning Stock route.
 The CSR strategies are promoted keeping in mind the
ability to market the products and services, furthermore
ensure targeting the right market segments comprising of
the customers.
 The marketing has been promoted through the
management of “Explore Australia” campaign by Four
Wheel Drive
 The prices of the available services are quite reasonable,
due to which, more visitors are visiting the place every year
(Packer, Ballantyne and Hughes 2014).
Strategies of marketing

 Bush camping is available at the Lake
Stretch with $30 per vehicle for the first
night while $10 extra for additional vehicle.
 The marketing strategies are used for
attracting more clients, while the obtained
money from permits are used for protecting
the cultural, heritage and environmental
values
 To enhance the marketing scopes and
opportunities, the rangers have provided
movie nights for the tourists by the Jigalong
Ranger team (McDonald et al. 2014).

 The development of tourism has been possible
with the management of movie nights for the
tourists and even protecting the cultural sites
properly
 Mosaic burning has been done for cleaning the
wastes nearby and ensure that the outside
environment is kept clean and safe.
 By the Durba Springs, the tourists have helped the
Martu rangers to clean off the graffiti at Pinpi.
 The fauna monitoring and water testing are
conducted to protect the cultural sites and ensure
successful management of environment too.
Cultural heritage sites and its
tourism development

 Lack of good weather conditions due to which, the
tourists may face issues while travelling.
 Damage to flora, fauna and the heritage places
 The plants grow aggressively and become weeds which
can interfere the water ways and flow of water properly
 The native fauna and flora species have been reduced
largely with the emergence of predators and has lead
to extinction (Jupp et al. 2016).
 The plants are cut, which are major sources of
vegetation and have been cleared for collection of
firewood and thus the shelter and food sources of
animals have decreased.
Issues faced at a specific
cultural-heritage location

 The protection of Canning Stock route will be possible by
staying on the main route and not taking parallel tracks to
gain entry into the area, which could destroy the habitat.
 To keep the roads intact and proper, softer tyres must be
used with wider tread and traction for reducing the
corrugations over time along with driving of vehicles are
lower speed.
 The Australian Four Wheel Driving Council should be
engaged with the management of Canning track route.
 The places should be kept clean and wastes must not be
disposed to ensure that the salt lake systems, sand dunes,
rocky ranges and major creeks all around remain safe and
sound (Smith 2015).
Solutions to obtain sustainable
outcomes

 Boniface, P., 2013. Managing quality cultural tourism. Routledge.
 Briassoulis, H. and Van Der Straaten, J. eds., 2013. Tourism and the environment: regional,
economic, cultural and policy issues (Vol. 6). Springer Science & Business Media.
 Calabrò, F. and Della Spina, L., 2014. The Cultural and Environmental Resources for
Sustainable Development of Rural Areas in Economically Disadvantaged Contexts-Economic-
Appraisals Issues of a Model of Management for the Valorisation of Public Assets. In
Advanced Materials Research (Vol. 869, pp. 43-48). Trans Tech Publications.
 Jupp, T., Fitzsimons, J., Carr, B. and See, P., 2016. New partnerships for managing large desert
landscapes: experiences from the Martu Living Deserts Project. The Rangeland Journal,
37(6), pp.571-582.
 McDonald, J., Steelman, K.L., Veth, P., Mackey, J., Loewen, J., Thurber, C.R. and Guilderson,
T.P., 2014. Results from the first intensive dating program for pigment art in the Australian
arid zone: insights into recent social complexity. Journal of Archaeological Science, 46,
pp.195-204.
 Packer, J., Ballantyne, R. and Hughes, K., 2014. Chinese and Australian tourists' attitudes to
nature, animals and environmental issues: Implications for the design of nature-based
tourism experiences. Tourism Management, 44, pp.101-107.
 Smith, M.K., 2015. Issues in cultural tourism studies. Routledge.
 Throsby, D., 2016. Tourism, heritage and cultural sustainability: three ‘golden rules’. In
Cultural tourism and sustainable local development (pp. 31-48). Routledge.
Bibliography

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