British Nuclear Test Site Returned To Aborigines

A former British nuclear test site in the depths of the Australian outback has finally been handed back to its Aboriginal owners after more than half a century.

Codenamed Section 400, the secret Cold War atomic weapons testing base was used in the 1950s and 60s and covered 1,782 square kilometres (688 square miles) of remote South Australia.

Now the Australian Government has formally given the site at Maralinga back to its traditional owners, the Maralinga Tjarutja, who hope to turn it into a tourism attraction.

Maralinga Tjarutja general manager Richard Preece says the community is establishing a business to take visitors round the nuclear test sites.

"We're going to set up bus tours so people can be taken round by Robin (the local caretaker), who is a walking encyclopaedia of Maralinga," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

He added the area still had some contamination but would be safe for visitors if they were escorted.

"Most of the buildings there have been taken away (but) some are still there and there's a huge airstrip," he said.

"There's lots of concrete slabs of course but the really interesting area is where you can actually look at where all the tests were done."

There is strong interest from four-wheel-drive clubs, tourists experiencing the outback, and former servicemen who were based in Maralinga.

Tours are planned to start from April next year.

"The Maralinga Tjarutja people have waited far too long for this to become a reality," Defence Minister David Johnston said in a statement.

"Defence has adjusted its testing activities to allow the removal of Section 400 from the Woomera Prohibited Area."

At the time of the tests many of the Maralinga people were removed from their traditional lands and relocated.

The Australian government spent Aus$100m (£55m) rehabilitating the contaminated site between 1993 and 2001 after recommendations by the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia.

Most of the Maralinga Tjarutja land was handed back to indigenous people in 2009 but the weapons testing area was held back until now.