The plunging visitor numbers at the NT’s iconic Kakadu National Park are continuing to cause significant alarm, as authorities look for ways to prevent the downwards spiral.
According to data from Parks Australia, visitation numbers have plunged by more than 40,000 in less than a decade. In 2008, 228,899 tourists came to the park, whereas last year only 187,756 decided it wasn’t Kaka-don’t.
Meanwhile, the much smaller Litchfield National Park, some 300 kilometres to the west, is seeing nearly double the number of visitors that Kakadu is, and the popularity of Katherine’s Nitmiluk National Park is also rising, with 268,800 visitors there last year.
While many grey nomads commonly point to the high cost of entry and others to the mozzie hordes as deterring factors, there is also renewed focus on the future of the town of Jabiru within Kakadu. The settlement was built by Energy Resources Australia (ERA) in 1982 to service the nearby Ranger Uranium Mine on the condition that it would be returned to its ‘pre-development state’ when the lease expired in 2021.
However, rather than seeing the town wiped from the map, some are sensing an opportunity. The Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, on behalf of the Mirarr traditional owners, has compiled a draft plan to guide a transition from a mining to a tourism-based town — complete with a crocodile-free lake to swim in and a new town centre.
The corporation’s chief executive, Justin O’Brien, wants to see stakeholders, which includes three tiers of government, the Northern Australian Land Council and ERA, sign off on a final plan within four months. The draft masterplan, which Mr O’Brien stressed was “quite an early piece of work”, included a Kakadu Visitor Centre, an Aboriginal Cultural Museum Centre, and an Arts and Cultural Space.
This would provide the framework for the town to become a “cultural, science and education research centre” and the infrastructure to build partnerships with universities. However, the key development would be shifting the town centre and entry to show off views of the Arnhem Land escarpment and to croc-proof the town lake so people can swim in it.
“We need to re-orient the sense of arrival to Jabiru,” Mr O’Brien said. “At the moment you come and you come to the back of all the shops — there’s no real sense that you’re in Kakadu National Park at all.”
It is thought that Jabiru’s limited lifespan may be at least partly to blame for the falling visitation rates to Kakadu National Park. Some banks refused to loan to businesses based in a town that’s stamped with an expiry date, preventing newcomers from investing and other businesses from growing.
• What – if anything – puts you off visiting Kakadu? Comment below.
I`ve had 2 trips to Kakadu, the first and the last all in one trip.
Tourists don`t like being ripped off the second time.
Plus they tell all their friends.
A beautiful place to visit but National Parks charge such hefty fees people are calling it Kakadon’t not kakadu.
We went to Kakadu last year such a beautiful place to visit. We were disappointed upon entry into the national park as we were told that rangers patrol and check to see if you had permits. Well $80 dollars later after much insistence that we had to have it, we did come across some rangers, our permits were never checked and we were not asked if we had one, which got us thinking that we didn’t really need to buy it in the firsts place. If we ever visit again I won’t be bothered getting them again. Rip off indeed.
I never paid the park fee…..I’d paid very handsomely to go to Coburg Peninsula, so I wasn’t going to fork out another park fee to drive through the joint. Ridiculously, a few of the caravan parks, I paid near on $40 per night (2012) for an unpowered swag site (only due to the people I was with wanting to stay in parks). I wouldn’t go into those parks these days.
Free and reasonably priced camps and entry fees in line with other places (generally nil) is the only way they’ll get people back. I don’t care about swimming or mozzies. If I’m going to expend diesel to for 4 or 500klm out of my way, I don’t expect to be ripped off at the same time.