Listen to the Land: Pastoralists in the Wilandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area, 1981-2003

Listen to the Land is the story of pastoralists in the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area. It tells of their struggle to understand World Heritage and the many years they waited to see what would happen to their pastoral properties. It is a forgotten episode in the history of the region and in the history of World Heritage. The 20 pastoralists lived through a lot over that period, but they also had a big impact upon the World Heritage process as it is practiced in Australia. Some places never pursued World Heritage after what happened in the Willandra. The episode serves as a lesson for stakeholders, policy makers and governments about the broad-scale impact of rushed decisions made without a thorough stakeholder engagement process.