Jasemin Rose translates South Africa activism to South Australia; pushes climate change issue in conservation council

Jasemin Rose became three times president of the Conservation Council of South Australia, five times as vice president and chair of many committees including a subcommittee on climate change. She was a candidate for the Greens party in the state election of 2014 – a year of protests about cutbacks to rangers in state national and conservation parks.

Jasemin Rose brought her early activism on South Africa to South Australia where she was added to its environment hall of fame in 2022 for a lifetime of achievement on that issue.

Rose grew up on a cattle property in South Africa in a family that supported human rights. Her first public actions were in the 1950s as a member of the South African Black Sash: women who opposed apartheid.

 In South Australia, Rose was a member of the St Agnes Bushwalkers, in Adelaide’s northeastern suburbs, from 1982. This led to her getting involved conservation campaigns such as saving Angove scrub from housing, influencing Yurrebilla trail being created, ensuring the Heysen Trail followed the Waitpinga cliffs and advocating for other parks to be conserved.

In 1990, Rose  joined the Conservation Council of South Australia, the state’s peak non-government community environment body from 1971 and an umbrella organisation for around 55 of the its diverse environment groups. Rose served three times as president of the Conservation Council, five times as vice president and chair of many committees, and as a representative for the environment at the highest levels.

Working hard to raise the issue of the rapidly increasing impact of climate change, Rose was first chair of the Conservation Council's climate change subcommittee  and on climate emergency declaration. Rose represented the Conservation Council at an Environment Protection Agency round table conference on environmental interests in 2000. That year, she received a centenary medal for service to the Conservation Council.  

Rose  also was a Conservation Council spokesperson on matters ranging from protecting the Hills Face Zone from development (2002), illegal native vegetation clearances in the state's Riverland and Mallee (2004), and conserving Australia’s historic places (2005).

In 2014, Rose took her stand to the political arena as a Greens party candidate in 2014 for the Barossa Valley state House of Assembly seat of Schubert.