Australia to ban climbing Uluru from 2019

Canberra, Nov 1 (IANS) Climbing on Australia's iconic Uluru landmark will be banned from October 2019, authorities said on Wednesday. The giant red monolith in the Northern Territory is sacred to Aboriginal Australians.

The board of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park voted unanimously to end the climb because of indigenous sensitivities, the BBC reported.

People have long asked visitors not to climb the outcrop, which was known for many years as Ayers Rock.

Signs at the start of the climb ask people to abstain from going up in respect to the traditional law of the Anangu Aboriginal people, the custodians of the land.

"It is an extremely important place, not a playground or theme park like Disneyland," Board Chairman and Anangu man Sammy Wilson said.

"If I travel to another country and there is a sacred site, an area of restricted access, I don't enter or climb it, I respect it."

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