Significant expansion of the Warrenben Conservation Park on Yorke Peninsula
Villawood Properties has gifted almost 1000 hectares of ecologically significant land to the Warrenben Conservation Park located on Narungga country on the south-east Yorke Peninsula, 12 km north-east of Marion Bay.
The park will grow from 4,065 hectares to 5,035 hectares with the addition of the new land which has been provided as part of a conservation offset program. Warrenben Conservation Park is a richly diverse landscape that provides rare flora and fauna habitats including to the critically endangered Goldsack's leek-orchid, malleefowl and mallee whipbird.
This ecologically important parcel of land significantly increases the potential of the park to support conservation programs such as Northern and Yorke Landscape Board’s Marna Banggara project that reintroduces locally extinct native species.
The endangered mallee whipbird lives in the dense mallee and is visibly elusive yet has a loud and distinctive call likened to a squeaky gate. Once abundant around South Australia, the mallee whipbird now resides in just three small pockets on Yorke Peninsula, Eyre Peninsula and the Murray Mallee.
Director National Parks Program Jason Irving said that "Opportunities to acquire vegetated land for the reserve system are rare and so it is exciting to be able to enhance the current Warrenben Conservation Park with this gifted land."
"Our parks are of enormous benefit to conservation and to all who visit them. Being able to expand our parks through gifts such as this, ensures we can continue our work to reinvigorate land and that there will be nature-filled opportunities for future generations to learn from, to protect and to enjoy," said Mr Irving.
The expansions is in addition to 1,246 hectares added to eight other parks across the state by the Malinauskas Government and the creation of two new national parks at Nilpena and Worlds End. The additions align with the state and federal governments’ 30 by 30 commitment, which aims to protect 30 per cent of Australia’s landmass and marine areas by 2030 in an effort to halt further biodiversity loss.
The Department for Environment and Water manages about 23 million hectares of national parks and wilderness protection areas, which comprise about 22 per cent of the state’s land.
