AUSTRALIA: An aboriginal tribe is seeking to assert what it regards as its rights over Ayers Rock Nick Squires reports from Sydney.
It is Australia's most recognisable natural feature, appearing on countless postcards, posters and tourist brochures.
But Ayers Rock, now more commonly known by its Aboriginal name, Uluru, is at the centre of a damaging row between its traditional indigenous custodians, commercial photographers - and a teddy bear called Bromley.
The local Anangu tribe are sick of what they see as the excessive commercial exploitation of Uluru, the monolith at the heart of the continent.
The giant rock contains sacred caves, waterholes and other culturally sensitive sites which the Anangu say must not be photographed.
Tribal elders want to see much stricter enforcement of laws designed to safeguard their ancient customs. Although only introduced in 2000, the regulations apply retrospectively, and mean that 40 per cent of Ayers Rock is off limits to commercial photography.
But professional photographers and film-makers, as well as local tourism operators, say the rules are not only draconian but confusing, and could harm Uluru's ability to attract tourists.
Images of Uluru which are prohibited for commercial use include views of the north face of the rock at dawn, the summit, and the sunrise viewing area where hundreds of visitors gather each evening.
Tourists are largely unaffected by the restrictions - only a few sacred sites around the base of the rock are off limits to casual snappers.
The row descended into farce recently when Aborigines demanded that a children's book, featuring a teddy bear named Bromley who climbs to the top of Uluru, should be rewritten or withdrawn from sale.
The Anangu view as sacred the 348-metre summit, as well as the long, snaking path which tens of thousands of tourists climb each year.
Aborigines believe that the 1.6-kilometre trail, which is marked by a chain strung between metal posts, follows the path of the ancestral spirit of the mala, a species of wallaby featured in traditional Dreamtime stories.
But the authors of the book, Alan and Patricia Campbell, argue that they wrote Bromley Climbs Uluru long before the introduction of the current legislation.
The Campbells, from Sydney, came up with the idea for the book after visiting Uluru on a trip to the Northern Territory in 1986. They climbed to the top of the rock and took a photograph of a teddy bear wearing a wide-brimmed hat with corks, with a length of rope slung over his shoulder. The book, one of a series of seven featuring Bromley, was a hit and has sold more than 45,000 copies.
Despite risking a fine of A$55,000 (€32,000), the couple have vowed to print a further 3,000 copies of the book, accusing the Anangu, and the body that represents them, the Central Land Council, of taking political correctness to ridiculous extremes.
Mr Campbell told The Australian newspaper this week that he and his wife were "now throwing down the gauntlet to the Land Council by saying that we'll reprint our book, and so we're asking them, 'What are you going to do about it?'"
Another person to have fallen foul of Aboriginal sensitivity recently is the acclaimed German film-maker Wim Wenders, who last week sent a written apology to Anangu elders for using images of Uluru in an exhibition of his photography in Sydney.
The exhibition, "Pictures From the Surface of the Earth", currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art, included a panoramic photograph of the Olgas, or Kata-Tjuta, a spectacular jumble of domes and huge boulders which lie 30 kilometres west of Ayers Rock, and are equally sacred. The offending image, Valley of the Winds, taken by Wenders in 1988, was removed from display.
Tourism operators say the laws regarding the use of Uluru images are inconsistent. The manager of a helicopter company which conducts flights over the rock, Dan O'Dwyer, said he was refused permission to use a photograph of Uluru for a brochure.
But he said the Anangu gave permission for Qantas to use the same backdrop for a multi-million pound television advertisement because the airline sponsored the nearby Mutitjula Aboriginal community.
Damien Hanger, a spokesman for Ayers Rock Resort, which accommodates more than 4,000 tourists a night, said: "We have tried operating under these guidelines for three years but they are just not working. We don't want to ride roughshod over Anangu beliefs but at the moment the system is too cumbersome."
Mr Hanger said that under the current regulations, it takes up to 56 days to receive a decision on whether an image of Uluru can be used commercially.
"Long-term it will have an impact on tourist numbers because if inbound operators find it hard to use images to sell the destination, they will start sending people elsewhere."
The row over photography would be eclipsed by a ban on climbing Ayers Rock altogether. Such a ban has already been publicly debated, and in May 2001 the summit trail was closed for 10 days out of respect for the death of a local Aboriginal elder.
The steepness of the path and the fact that temperatures can exceed 40 degrees centigrade in summer mean there are often fatalities. More than 30 people have died while attempting the climb, mostly from heart attacks or falls.