The Western Australian government has today announced that the picturesque King Leopold Ranges will officially be renamed Wunaamin-Miliwundi Ranges, in a huge step towards acknowledging the traditional owners of the land.
If you’re unfamiliar with history, King Leopold was – by pretty much all accounts – a really bad dude. So bad, in fact, that his rule of the Congo (and the estimated 10 million deaths that occurred there) is believed to have led to the introduction of the phrase “crimes against humanity.”
To put it simply, the Belgian tyrant doesn’t deserve to have such an iconic Australian landmark named after him. And thankfully, the Western Australian government has decided to rename it after something much more appropriate, the traditional names of the area.
The decision was confirmed by Aboriginal Affairs Minister Ben Wyatt earlier on Friday morning.
“[Wunaamin-Miliwundi] is a combination of the Ngarinyin and Bunuba traditional names for those ranges,” Mr Wyatt said. “It’s much more appropriate for what those ranges are, and what they represent as a key Kimberley landmark.”
Considering the ranges span over more than 500km of land, the combination name was chosen to reflect the diverse range of traditional country areas in which it inhabits.
The decision to rename the ranges has been in the works for a long time, but given the diverse range of traditional land owners (with different cultures and languages), it was important to find a name that truly represented the region.
“We’re at the point now where speaking with the two key native title groups, [they] very quickly agreed the new name was appropriate and supported it strongly,” Mr Wyatt said, according to the ABC.
The ranges were first named after Leopold back in 1879 by explorer Alexander Forrest. Leopold himself actually had no significance in the area, and didn’t even step foot on Australian soil during his lifetime, so it seems wildly inappropriate to name the ranges after him, instead of the traditional custodians of that land.
While the historical significance of other controversial figures like Captain James Cook can be debated until we’re all blue in the face, it’s important to note that Leopold had precisely *checks notes* fuck all to do with Australia, so it was a pretty easy decision to rename the ranges.
“I’m delighted we’ve finally got around to removing the name of someone history recognises as a tyrant, who massacred a lot of African people and had no connection to Western Australia whatsoever,” Mr Wyatt said.
“I think most Australians will be glad to see a traditional name given to this iconic Kimberley landmark.”
