Victoria’s Goldfields fast-tracked in bid for World Heritage status

January 30, 2025 journo

Victoria’s Goldfields are on a fast track to becoming a World Heritage-listed location, as the state and federal governments declare the region’s historic values demand global recognition.

Australia will on Friday nominate the Goldfields for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) tentative list, which is the first formal step in World Heritage recognition.

Ruins of the Garfield Water Wheel in Chewton, Victoria.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the Goldfields are a rich historical landscape that tell the story of First Nations communities – including the Dja Dja Wurrung and Gunaikurnai peoples – as well as the hundreds of thousands of migrants who came to tap into the gold rush.

“The Victorian Goldfields tell so many stories – of waves of immigration, of building beautiful towns from a harsh landscape, that have stood the test of time. Of the local First Nations people who cared for and tended the land for tens of thousands of years,” Plibersek said.

Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan, MP for the electorate of Bendigo East, located in the historic district, said the region boasted the most extensive and best-surviving gold-rush landscape in the world.

“From the historic streets of Bendigo to the grand buildings of Castlemaine and the untouched mining landscapes of Walhalla – the Goldfields stand as a living testament to those who came to Victoria, seeking a better life and how they transformed the state,” Allan said.

The Goldfields were built on the windfall delivered by a mining boom that began with a discovery at Clunes in 1851 and spread across Victoria’s north.

The state’s minerals boom was unusual because the alluvial deposits with gold lay near the surface, allowing thousands of hopefuls to tap the boom, which in turn fuelled spending in the towns that sprang up to service the diggings.

Victoria’s non-Indigenous population soared from around 29,000 in 1851 to more than 120,000 within three years. Americans, Germans, Scandinavians, Britons and Chinese made the voyage to Australia.

Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo, a city enriched by the gold rush. Credit: Visit Victoria

Towns such as Ararat, Ballarat, Bendigo and Castlemaine sprang up, with grand colonial buildings and public parks that testified to the newfound wealth. Melbourne, the port where most migrants came to join the gold rush, became one of world’s richest cities.

Former Victorian Labor premier John Brumby has been campaigning for World Heritage listing since 1988, when he was the federal member for Bendigo.

Old mining machinery at the Porcupine gold dredge and drag line in Maldon. Credit: Parks Victoria

Brumby, along with former Victorian Liberal premier Denis Napthine, is a patron of the campaign.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Brumby said. “The Goldfields [region] has the best streetscapes, the best architecture, the best-preserved mining sites and buildings, which of course builds on Indigenous heritage as well.

“Apart from the extraordinary wealth that it created, the 1850s gold rush was [one of the] biggest mass movements of people in the world to that time, and people from countries all around the world came to Victoria to hunt for gold, and drove dramatic change in Victoria and Australia.

“It’s an extraordinary global story about the movement of people and the creation of wealth, communities and democracy.

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