Aboriginal elder Willie Gordon

                                                 Aboriginal elder Willie Gordon

The dormant rock art stories of Indigenous cultures living on Cape York may endure for centuries to come through funding for preservation by the Queensland government, but the methods of preserving rock art are still evolving.

Next week, the Department of Environment and Resource Management will meet with traditional owners near Bathurst Head to discuss preservation of Indigenous rock art in the area.
Traditional story-teller of the Nugal-warra clan, Willie Gordon, who runs tours of rock art sites near Cooktown, about 150 kilometres south of Bathurst Head, says maintaining sites is a complicated issue.
Willie has worked on the preservation of rock art, working with experts from around the world as well as documenting sites for future reference.
He says one method of preserving the rock art by some Aboriginal tribes is to repaint rock art.
""If you go to different parts of Australia they've already recoated or repainted art. They've painted it because it's in our culture to keep it alive and well," he says.
"They do things with Picasso's paintings [to preserve them] and Picasso's paintings are not forty thousands years old. They're a couple of hundred years old.
"So they do the same thing with Picasso's painting[s] and they're more expensive than our paintings ... if you want to put it in monetary terms."
Financial opportunities could also arise from the rock art's preservation.
"I think there's a potential for creating jobs," he says.
"You've got to be careful though what values you put on tourism and rock art.
"But there are stories that they've passed down for thousands of years and I think that needs to be continued."
Willie says there are possibly 'hundreds' of undiscovered rock art sites on the Cape.
A recent survey he conducted with the EPA around Cooktown and Hopevale also uncovered many more sites he previously didn't know about.
"We've been amazed at how many rock art [paintings there are] that we never knew about. But we've recorded that and it's in the [EPA's] archives," he says.
"We should go around and record as much as possible as it is in its state and if there's any future in preserving them we need to be careful in how we should do that.
"We need to look at responsible people [to take care of them]. People who want to be responsible for them because if we let them go, then they've gone forever.
"The question is are we going to leave it in Dreamtime or are we going to carry the stories?"