Joanna Tucker, Yorke Peninsula Country Times

The World Heritage bid for the Australian Cornish Mining Sites: Burra and Moonta is on track, with hopes of achieving recognition by July 2029.

UK-based world heritage consultant Barry Gamble visited Moonta Mines last week and gave an update on the bid to National Trust of South Australia Moonta branch volunteers at the Moonta School of Mines.

The state government recently endorsed the bid’s Preliminary Assessment, which must now be signed by Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt before Australian Ambassador to France, Her Excellency Ms Lynette Wood, presents it to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Paris on September 15.

Mr Gamble first visited Moonta Mines 21 years ago and said patience was a virtue when it came to World Heritage bids.

“What we’re waiting for now is the signature on the document which has to be submitted by the Australian ambassador in Paris to the World Heritage Centre,” Mr Gamble said.

“Then, that document is the first step of the evaluation.”

He said the first stage would take one year after the document was submitted, with a report to be returned in October 2026.

If UNESCO’s report on the Preliminary Assessment is positive and it is deemed to have merit, the organisation will recommend how best to prepare stage two, a 300-page Nomination Dossier, to be submitted after February 1, 2028.

“That gives us time not only to put that dossier together but work on the sites here at Moonta Mines and also Burra,” Mr Gamble said.

Although there had been a huge amount achieved over the past two decades, there was still considerable work to do at Moonta Mines and Burra, much of it expected to be challenging, he said.

If the state and federal governments backed stage two, there was a possibility of World Heritage listing by July 2029.

“Often to go to this next step, it’s three, five, can even be 10 years on the tentative list before you go forward yet somehow, you’ve just shot to the front and you’re in the system as of September 15 — as long as we get that signature from the minister,” he said.

Book and calendar launch

Mr Gamble also helped launched a reprinted edition of Oswald Pryor’s Cornish Pasty and the 2026 calendar by photographer Ian Archibald.

Oswald Pryor’s Cornish Pasty was reprinted by NTSA chair Graham Hancock and World Heritage site coordinator Kate Tuohy.

Ms Tuohy said Mr Hancock had written to the family for the rights to publish.

“Oswald Pryor told the story of social history and that is so vital,” she said.

“We see the buildings and the history around us, but the social history is such an important part of the story.

This article appeared in Yorke Peninsula Country Times, 26 August 2025.