A delegation from the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation (MAC) has travelled to Paris for a final decision on its bid to secure World Heritage Listing for the Murujuga Cultural Landscape on the Burrup Peninsula and the islands of the Dampier Archipelago in North West Australia.

The group's strong presence in France includes Federal Environment minister Murray Watt and precedes the decision during UNESCO's World Heritage committee annual meeting (July 6-16).

The decision is the culmination of a rigorous Indigenous-led process conducted over several years to meet strict standards required to be awarded the rare international recognition of World Heritage listing for a cultural site in Australia.

A recent report from a five-year, world-expert scientific monitoring program of the area was the largest of its kind ever undertaken globally. It included a team of 55 scientists from Curtin University and was also independently reviewed.

The report concluded current emissions did not appear to be damaging the more than one million ancient Aboriginal petroglyphs, although activists recently disputed its findings, with UNESCO recently delaying granting the World Heritage listing due to concerns about industrial emission.

MAC - which represents the collective voice of Ngarda-Ngarli (Traditional Owners and Custodians for Murujuga) – was hopeful of receiving immediate inscription of the Murujuga Cultural Landscape – an area on the Burrup Peninsula in WA's north west Pilbara region.

Immediate inscription by UNESCO would ensure the highest level of heritage protection and management available under Australian Law, with the landscape protected for future generations, and the ongoing monitoring program to track any impact of ongoing gas production near the ancient rock art.

MAC chair Peter Hicks said the long-awaited decision was an immensely significant moment for the five Traditional Owner groups of Murujuga.

"This extraordinary landscape has been managed and cared for by our ancestors for more than 50,000 years, and is a sacred, spiritual and deeply storied place," he said before the decision, which National Indigenous Times understands is likely to be on Friday.

"It is one of the most extensive and ancient collections of petroglyphs in the world, and provides a visual record of how our ancestors have lived, practiced their culture and interacted with this landscape over thousands of generations.

"The significance and importance of the Murujuga Cultural Landscape to the world cannot be understated."

The collection of up to two million petroglyphs (rock carvings) in the vast, resource-rich Pilbara is one of the largest known in the world, and includes depictions of human figures, stone structures, spiritual and religious carvings, and thousands of animals.

The exhibition of evolving varied carvings are the oldest to document how animal populations in an area change over thousands of years, with the ancient carvings also a unique illustration of how artistic elements of subjects were technically refined over millennia.

The Australian Government nominated the Murujuga Cultural Landscape, 1500km north of Perth, which covers 99,881 hectares of land and sea Country, for World Heritage Listing in January 2023.

The area encompasses the Burrup Peninsula and 44 islands, islets and rocky outcrops that form the Dampier Archipelago, and the UNESCO nomination had met all requirements but was hindered, Mr Hicks said, by a misrepresentation of scientific findings by opposing groups.

"The draft decision as we see it is that the science has been misrepresented by different groups out there … The science needs to be looked at and respected," Mr Hicks told National Indigenous Times.

"There were seriously experienced researchers and experts involved in the program, not contractors and untrained rangers, as opponents have suggested."

MAC's nomination for World Heritage listing has also received overwhelmingly support from the WA government, as well as gas heavyweights operating nearby.

The area was recently assessed by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) to be one of great quality and sensitivity.

Mr Hicks said the bid had met every criterion and threshold for inscription, including clear demonstration of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV), integrity, authenticity and state of conservation, with adequate monitoring, protection and management systems.

"We remain confident the World Heritage Committee will agree that the area's physical heritage and intangible cultural values deserve to be acknowledged and protected through immediate inscription onto the World Heritage List," he said.

The Murujuga Cultural Landscape is one of the longest continuous cultural landscapes in the world - with tangible and intangible attributes that document at least 50,000 years of land and sea management by Aboriginal people - and holds one of the world's most dense and diverse collections of petroglyphs (rock engravings), with an estimate of up to two million petroglyphs.

While some petroglyphs are estimated to be tens of thousands of years old, others are more recent, offering a continuous record of the spiritual, social, and environmental lives of people living at Murujuga over periods of significant climatic and environmental change.