Nature Foundation moves on from 1981 start to have role in managing eight South Australian reserves

Little black cormorants near the bird hide at Nature Foundation's Witchelina Nature Reserve near Marree in South Australia's north.
Image by Phil Cole, courtesy Nature Foundation 

Nature Foundation owned and managed or jointly managedeight nature reserves in South Australia by 2022. This was a second step for the foundation, started by a group of Adelaide business people in 1981 as the not-for-profit National Parks Foundation.

Initially, the funds it raised went to buying land to hand over to be protected by the state government national parks system. It also helped the government and other environmental groups buy large areas, such as Wilpena Pound, Paney, Scrubby Peak, Portee and Boolcoomatta pastoral stations, for national parks or nature reserves.

Nature Foundation (formerly Nature Foundation SA) grew and gained the ability to care for and manage large properties in its own right. Its involved with these eight nature reserves: 

• Witchelina: 421,000 hectares near Marree, a vital part of north-south eco link from Port Augusta to the Northern Territory and into Arnhem Land.

• Hiltaba: 78,000ha in the Gawler Ranges on Eyre Peninsula conserves important native habitat, plants and animals, as part of east meets west naturelink .

• Para Woodlands: 320ha near Gawler, managed with the state environment and water department, to restore critically endangered peppermint box grassy woodland.

• Watchalunga: 92ha of low-lying Fleurieu Peninsula swamp at the Finniss River mouth with threatened species including the critically endangered Mount Lofty Ranges southern emu wren.

• Tiliqua: 85ha northwest of Burra, protecting the pygmy bluetongue lizard, previously thought extinct but rediscovered near Burra in 1992. 

• Cygnet Park Sanctuary: 300ha near Kingscote on Kangaroo Island, using the annual KI Planting Festival to increase habitat and biodiversity for native threatened species and plants.

 • Murbpook, a wetland on the River Murray,

 • Geegeela, next to Geegeela Conservation Park, at Bangham in South Australia’s southeast, 

The foundation’s broad activities also include water buying, research, citizen science and carbon abatement.