Speeches
Tuesday, 19 November 2024
Reception for Arid Recovery
I warmly welcome you all to Government House.
Thank you to members of the Arid Recovery and Roxby Downs community who have travelled from the Far North for this evening’s reception.
As we are all aware, Australia faces a biodiversity crisis.
A record number of birds, mammals, frogs and plants was added to the national threatened species list last year, with conservation experts warning we won’t be able to save every animal from extinction.
Here in South Australia, arid lands make up a majority of the state’s land area.
They have suffered especially from the invasion of feral animals, including rabbits, cats and foxes, resulting in the loss of small and medium native mammal species.
While these challenges are significant, there is hope.
A wide range of innovative conservation work is taking place around our country, often led by Arid Recovery’s research here in South Australia.
Arid Recovery is one of Australia’s first and largest predator-proof safe havens for threatened species - something of which we can all be proud.
I congratulate the organisation on reintroducing a range of native animals in the past 27 years to your protected reserve, including Bilbies, Burrowing Bettongs, Western Quolls, Stick-nest rats, Shark Bay Bandicoots and Kowaris.
In May of this year, during an official visit to the Roxby Downs region, I had the pleasure of attending an Arid Recovery Sunset Tour.
The tour was a unique opportunity to experience how vibrant and widely inhabited Australia’s outback was before European settlement.
It was a genuine joy to see reintroduced, locally extinct species in their natural habitats.
It was also the first time I had seen a real life bilby rather than the popular Haigh’s Chocolate ones at Easter time!
I was shown how to identify animal tracks, including the unmistakable tracks of the bettong; and to identify plant species.
It was heartening to see that, while some species like the pig-footed bandicoot are lost forever, Arid Recovery has saved several others from extinction, and is rebuilding their numbers for the future.
This evening, as Arid Recovery approaches its fourth decade, we gather to celebrate its achievements and look to the future.
From its beginnings as a humble friends’ group in 1997, the organisation now oversees 12,300 hectares of fenced reserve, a living laboratory not only rebuilding threatened species numbers, but producing impactful research that informs conservation work across Australia.
I thank Arid Recovery for growing South Australia’s reputation in the management of feral animals, the reintroduction of threatened species and the expansion of predator-free safe havens.
I note that Arid Recovery is a training ground for the many students who study on the reserve, and am pleased to see them partnering with the Kokatha people to undertake the challenging and important work of expanding nature beyond the fence into the wider rangelands.
I thank Arid Recovery’s board, staff and volunteers for their long-term vision, and patience and dedication in carrying this out.
I thank organisation partners BHP, the South Australian Department for Environment and Water, the University of Adelaide and Bush Heritage Australia, as well as the Roxby Downs community, for their support.
Congratulations Arid Recovery on pushing the frontier of what is possible in conservation.
I look forward to following and supporting your work as you bring about positive change both inside and outside your fence