Nature Foundation, by Adelaide group from 1981, South Australia's biggest private owner of nature reserves
Big corporate sponsors and the federal and state governments have supported Nature Foundation SA reserves such as Witchelina. Inset: Some original members of the National Parks Foundation, later Nature Foundation: John Branson, Barbara Hardy, David Cleland, Beryl Quayle, Warren Bonython and Mark Bonnin (inaugural president), around 1986.
Images courtesy Nature Foundation
Nature Foundation, founded in 1981 as The National Parks Foundation andlater called Nature Foundation SA, became the largest non-government nature conservation organisation in South Australia.
Supported by the South Australian and Australian governments, Nature Foundation owned, managed or was involved in eight nature reserves by 2022, representing nearly 40% of all private protected areas in South Australia, and 6% nationally. Its nature reserves were:
• Witchelina, near Leigh in the north of the state,
• Hilbata, Gawler Ranges.
• Watchalunga, Fleurieu Peninsula,
• Para Woodlands, near Gawler,
• Tiliqua, near Burra,
• Murbpook, a wetland on the River Murray,
• Geegeela, next to Geegeela Conservation Park, at Bangham in South Australia’s southeast,
• Cygnet Park Sanctuary on Kangaroo Island.
The Nature Foundation was founded in 1981 by a group comprising Warren Bonython, Barbara Hardy, Adelaide University lecturer and doctor Mark Bonnin and David Cleland, along with Jack Gitsham, Donald Jellis, Ron Johnson, Neville McNeill, Elizabeth Manley, Charles Schmidt and John Branson.
By its 30th anniversary in 2011, the foundation had helped to buy 25 properties, covering more than 7,000 square kilometres, for conservation, and it gave grants to more than 300 university researchers. It also created Water for Nature, buying water along the River Murray to conserving small private wetlands.
The foundation’s Bush Bank SA enabled it to buy and revive properties, before being sold to new owners obliged to maintain them under conservation status. The foundation’s work also included a wide-ranging science strategy, including arranging funding for ecological research; conservation programmes, such as Water for Nature and the Bushbank Revolving Fund; the Kids on Country programme for Aboriginal youths, and other initiatives.
It also delivered the Revitalising Private Conservation in South Australia that coordinated and delivered funding for conservation programmes by the South Australian government.
Nature Foundation became a limited company under the Corporations Act 2001, managed by an unpaid board of directors. The board comprised conservationists, scientists, business and professional people, and the foundation was managed by a small team in Prospect, a suburb north of Adelaide, along with rotational managers at its nature reserves. It also relied on support by members, donors and volunteers who work at fundraising, office administration and working bees.
Apart from government grants, the foundation received donations from local philanthropists and part of the "significant environmental benefits" payments that mining companies had to pay in South Australia.
