Protesters defy Mt Warning-Wollumbin climbing ban by Traditional Owners to gather to watch an Australia Day sunrise for the second year in a row

Protesters campaigning against the ban on hiking on one of Australia's most beautiful mountains have climbed to the top to make a provocative Australia Day video.

The trail to Mt Warning, now known as Wollumbin, was closed in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, but has since remained closed due to its cultural significance to Indigenous Australians.

In 2022, the NSW Department of National Parks recommended that management of the Tweed Coast area be transferred entirely to the small Wollumbin Consultative Group, which supports a ban on visitors to the popular walking spot.

The group, made up of Indigenous families and community organizations, caused an uproar when they claimed that admitting women – including women of Indigenous descent – ​​would ruin its cultural significance.

The Re-Open Mt Warning group, which has 4,700 members on Facebook, filmed their January 26 protest, which was attended by Ngarakbal elder Sturt Boyd, and shared the video on social media.

One of the group's founders, Marc Hendrix, author of A Guide to Climbing Mt Warning, said in a speech to those gathered at the summit that the mountain should be “for all Australians”.

“We are here to capture the first sunrise on Australia Day 2024,” Mr Hendrix said.

The Wollumbin National Park trail to Mt Warning-Wollumbin has been closed since March 2020 due to Covid-19, public safety risks from recent flooding and further consultation with the Aboriginal community

The mountain is famous because it is the highest peak at the easternmost point of Australia and is therefore the first part of Australia to receive sunlight every day.

“Despite all this recent division that we have experienced,” Mr Hendrix said referring to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, “we are here together with an elder of the Ngarakbal people.”

Mr Boyd's mother Marlene is named the custodian of Mt Warning and his sister Elizabeth has campaigned against the Wollumbin Consultative Group's claims.

“We are here with his permission to enjoy this beautiful day together and that is what Australia Day should be about: working together to make this country a great place.” said Mr Hendrik.

“So let's end the separation: when you look at this beautiful sunrise and the subtropical rainforest below us, the view out to the coastline, this is Australia in a nutshell.”

The mountain attracted more than 127,000 visitors annually before the picturesque Tweedshire trail closed in March 2020.

So says the Wollumbin Consultative Group the national park is of physical and spiritual importance to the community, especially for the Bundjalung nation.

A proposed new management plan for the site has sparked outrage and division among the local indigenous community.

Opposing local indigenous elders, including the Boyds, claim that the group appears to be destroying ancestral women's stories by claiming everything in the park as exclusively male and Bundjalung.

They also claim that the Yoocum Yoocum and the Ngarakbal Githabul people were the original people, and not the Bundjalung.

Elizabeth Boyd said in 2022 that her late mother Marlene Boyd, who died in 2007, is recognized as the 'Keeper of the Seven Sisters Creation Site', one of two women's lores.

There is also a memorial dedicated to her late mother on the Lyrebird Track at the foot of the park.

Elder Elizabeth Davis Boyd, the authorized representative of the Ngarakbal Githabul women, says the Wollumbin Consultative Group's proposal has caused great damage to her ancestral culture, tradition and lore.

The mountain attracted tens of thousands of hikers every year, but was closed by the NSW state government with little consultation. Pictured: Hikers at the summit before the ban was introduced

“Mount Warning and the closure process are being reported internationally as a Bundjalung men's site,” Ms Boyd said.

“This is not correct and is causing great damage to my ancestral culture, tradition and lore.

'My ancestors were already here.

“The Ngarakbal Githabul women are not involved in the consultation process regarding the management or closure of Mount Warning.

“The State Government's administrative decision to permanently close Mount Warning is not only contrary to my customary rights, women's rights and human rights, but also to my cultural responsibilities to the Gulgan Monument.”