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Posted: 2023-05-28 01:26:17

A remote Aboriginal community that has been shut to tourists for three years due to fears over the threat of COVID-19 has finally opened up to the outside world.

Western Australia's northernmost settlement, Kalumburu, home to about 400 people, on the north Kimberley coast, has been a popular place for tourists to stop when they visit the Mitchell Plateau and Honeymoon Beach.

Like other Indigenous communities across the state it closed at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 and, after extensive community debate, leaders decided to keep the community shut to non-exempt visitors in 2021 and 2022.

While tourists were told to stay away, residents still travelled regularly to the larger hubs of Derby and Kununurra to get supplies and visit family, prompting some to question the effectiveness of the strict measures meant to protect the vulnerable.

Community leaders held talks in recent weeks and decided they were ready to return to pre-pandemic arrangements.

Claude Mowaljarlai is one of many highly regarded Indigenous artists in Kalumburu.()

Building region's arts profile

Kira Kiro Arts studio coordinator Christopher Hardwick said local Indigenous artists were thrilled to once again show their works to tourists, who had started trickling into the gallery.

"The biggest benefit I see is that greater connectivity to the outside world," he said.

"Watching the faces of the artists and the joy and the pride they have in presenting their culture and art to people from the outside." 

He said the artists had still made revenue during the closure by selling their paintings at Waringarri Aboriginal Arts in Kununurra.

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