General News
2 April, 2026
Climbing zones scrapped: Arapiles starting over with climbing areas
A SIGNIFICANT decision was reached on Monday, March 23, by the Community Working Group representing various stakeholders in the use of the Arapiles/Dyurrite area.
A statement by Climbing Victoria chair, Mike Rockwell, on Wednesday last week announced “the concept of Designated Climbing Areas will no longer exist for Dyurrite” and would be an individual location-based approach with consideration to cultural heritage.
“Where cultural heritage does exist, a sub-working group will be set up to work through with BGLC (Barengi Gadjin Land Council) staff ways in which climbing can be maximised while still ensuring the proper protection of the cultural heritage,” he said.
“This will be down to a climb-by-climb level of detail for some of the locations.”
Anticipating the questions this would raise, Mr Rockwell detailed four steps that would define the next phase, starting with an Evaluation Framework.
“This EF needs to give the sub-working group a set of principles to apply,” he said.
“The EF is something that needs to be public-facing. Once it is developed in the coming days or weeks, we will share it to the climbing world for final feedback and transparency.
“At the same time, a Non-Disclosure Agreement covering just the cultural heritage that Traditional Owners want to keep secret needs to be prepared and finalised.
“The plan for this phase of work, including these steps, needs to be agreed by the CWG. At this stage, this is CV’s interpretation of what needs to be done, but is broadly in line what was discussed at Monday’s meeting.”
Step two involved the sub-working group going through detailed maps, including cultural heritage, at BGLC offices to “work out what climbing is possible” and to consider alternatives.
Mr Rockwell said for Step three, Climbing Victoria wanted the outputs from this sub-working group returned to the main Community Working Group.
“From this, we can decide how it is looking and whether it is likely to be acceptable or not,” he said.
“We would also want to be able to share a summary of this with the climbing community.”
Step 4 would be “the finalised output goes to the decision makers for formal approval”.
A public meeting organised by CV and the Arapiles District Community Group took place in Natimuk on Sunday evening, with a generally positive – although reservedly so – reception from many locals attending.
Climbing Shop owner, Wayne Webb, said he was in agreement with the climbing community collaborating with BGLC “as the law’s on their side”, but wanted the process to be open to public scrutiny.
“We want to try and form a relationship with them, because if we don’t, we’re screwed,” he said.
He said many questioned the requirement for an NDA, as they believed the relevant legal protections for cultural heritage already existed and made an NDA unnecessary “unless you're trying to keep the process a secret”.
“They're trying to get a group of people together to help work out the nuance of how climbing can work around the cultural values,” Mr Webb said.
“But they're trying to get those people to sign NDAs, so there's been a bit of pushback on that, because it's like, well, cultural heritage is already protected, so why do we need to sign an NDA?”
Nevertheless, he was optimistic, as the weight of public opinion had already been influential since the original bans announced in November 2024, and the latest development showed a genuine potential to find workable solutions.
Arapiles Climbing Museum’s Keith Lockwood was also at the meeting and said he hoped the practicalities could be worked out, as “people from around the world are still coming here”.
“Arapiles is world famous,” he said.
“On Sunday, we had people from Squamish in Canada visiting. We had a chap who rolled up from Colombia, his first time in Australia, and he came straight from Mount Arapiles.
“We had a couple from Queenstown, New Zealand, and we had two or three visitors from Sheffield, England. People are very interested in the outcome.
“The only other thing that came out of the meeting was Arapiles could well be a test case for access to public lands across Australia. So everyone's watching it with a lot of interest for the future of access to public land.”
Read More: Natimuk