Spiritual and Sacred Sites
Spiritual and sacred sites represents how Indigenous cultural and spiritual sites and practices are valued in the Darwin Harbour catchment. Information for this indicator was collected in 2020 via a survey of 50 Indigenous representatives living within the Darwin Harbour catchment. Survey questions covered topics related to the formal and informal identification, protection and respect of spiritual and sacred sites by Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people.
Scoring method
All survey questions had the same five response options which were scored accordingly: strongly disagree (0), disagree (25), neutral (50), agree (75), and strongly agree (100) - which matched the standardised 0-100 report card scoring scale. Responses to questions were averaged and reported by category: i) protection of sacred sites, and ii) respect of country.
Findings
Spiritual and sacred sites received an overall moderate grade (C+). A large proportion of respondents agreed that spiritual and sacred sites are respected by Indigenous people. Less than 20% agreed that sites are respected by non-Indigenous people and that enough is being done to protect these sites.
