A couple of years back, during the craziness of early Covid, one of Australia’s most popular hiking trails was closed, ostensibly due to repairs and safety concerns. That trail, the Mount Warning/Wollumbin Summit Track, was estimated to bring more than 100,000 people to the region each year. As the first place on mainland Australia to catch the day’s sunrise, it was famous for its pre-dawn departures and social media fanbase.

During the following months and years rumours emerged that the closure was in fact not for safety upgrades, but a strategy aimed to mitigate public opposition to its permanent closure due to sacred claims made by local Aboriginal groups.

That news is now official, with the release of the Wollumbin Aboriginal Place Management Plan, meaning the summit track and lookout have officially joined Uluru as restricted places.

It is a highly contentious issue, not only amongst residents and the broader outdoor community, but even amongst the local Aboriginal population. The Australian newspaper spoke with Fiona Noble, an indigenous leader and Wollumbin local, who said she was sceptical about the process and the lack of community consultation.

“There is a lot of false naming and false stories that goes on,” she said. “I’m not entirely sure who is on this committee, but the National Parks is just another bureaucracy that doesn’t really get it. There needed to be voices from across the area heard.”

It is also a blow to the businesses that housed and fed the many tourists that would pass through the region every year. Mark Bourchier has owned the Mt Warning Rainforest Park campground at the foot of the mountain since 2010. “Mount Warning was a major ticket item for backpackers and travellers who would drop in for a night or two but that’s totally dried up,” he told The Guardian earlier this year.

While respect must be shown for sacred places, it is devastating that these magnificent public places are no longer accessible to the public. It also begs the question of where this will end. While the 2019 ban on climbing Uluru received extensive media coverage, local Indigenous groups have made similar calls regarding the likes of St Mary Peak in South Australia, Bluff Knoll in Western Australia and Mount Tibrogargan and Mount Beerwah in Queensland’s Glass House Mountains.

It is the latest controversy to plague the National Parks and Wildlife Service that has suffered several missteps in recent times.