Agricultural land waste a prime reason for South Australian reserves to be created from 1930s
Ferries McDonald Conservation Park, near Monarto South on the Murray flats south east of Adelaide, was originally protected in 1938.
Image courtesy Parks SA
The draining 27-year fight for the 53,000-hectare Flinders Chase national park to be set aside on western Kangaroo Island in 1919, meant modest successes for extra South Australian wildlife habitat waited until the late 1930s.
In 1938, 648ha of mallee scrubland (later Ferries McDonald Conservation Park) near Monarto South on the Murray flats south east of Adelaide, was protected.
The state government gained its first conservation voice with a flora and fauna advisory committee in 1937. It was an influential link between government and outside bodies interested and expert in conservation. The committee pushed for more nature reserves in the late 1930s when South Australia was fundamentally rethinking agriculture in its marginal cropping lands.
Drought, depression and an expansion into unreliable areas had produced large areas of drifting country in mallee lands. In 1940, Peebinga and Billiatt reserves in the Murray mallee were created, primarily for erosion control but also as habitat for the rare mallee whipbird. Reserves followed in 1941 on Eyre Peninsula with Hambidge, Hincks and Lincoln, and, closer to Adelaide, Obelisk Estate (later Cleland Conservation Park) was bought in 1945.
Other areas set aside for conservation and recreation included the Flinders Ranges’ Wilpena Pound (1945), Mount Rescue in the upper south east (1953) and Kellidie Bay on lower Eyre Peninsula (1954).
In many cases, the prime reason wasn’t biodiversity. Peebinga and Billiatt came from concern over marginal lands and soil erosion; Lincoln, Kellidie Bay and Mount Rescue, because land was worthless for agriculture; and Hambidge and Hincks were seen by officials as reservations only as long as the land wasn’t needed for agriculture.
