Heritage @ Risk 2011
Lower River Murray, Murray Mouth, Lakes and Coorong
The Murray Darling Basin (MDB) has been listed as a Region at Risk for the past four years due to severe and widespread environmental degradation caused by the over-allocation of its water resources exacerbated by drought. This has threatened the ecological, economic and social sustainability of the region.
Threat:
The new threat comes from the Federal Government’s intervention in the work of the Authority to produce a scientifically based Basin Plan that has a reasonable certainty of returning most of the region, particularly the Ramsar listed wetlands of the Lower Lakes and Coorong, to a moderate standard of health.
The process has been undermined by the resignation and replacement of the Authority’s Chair, a Parliamentary Inquiry into social and economic impacts, a revision of the terms of reference, a protest by eminent scientists, the foreshadowing of water returns of less than 3,000 GL/yr with a proposal to micro-manage less than 100 of the 2,442 significant wetlands identified, and now, a delayed release of the Draft Plan.
Significance of Place:
The Lower Lakes and Coorong are in the top six of the 16 Ramsar listed wetlands in the Basin that support a high diversity of ecological systems and species; with many endangered or threatened. The ecological character at the time of nomination is protected under the EPBC Act 1999. This globally significant area supports more than 1% of the world’s populations of several Palaearctic migratory waders e.g. up to 20% for Sharp-tailed Sandpipers. It is key feeding and breeding habitat for the Fairy Tern, a species just rated as Endangered under the Act. Other vertebrates at risk include four listed fish and frog species.
Action Required:
The ecological health of the Lower Murray, Lakes and Coorong must be restored and conserved for a sustainable future. This can only be achieved by adopting a Basin Plan based on sound peer reviewed scientific principles where no less than 4,000 GL of water is restored to the system for environmental purposes. Water extraction up-stream must be reduced through buy-backs and water conserving mechanisms, funded by Federal and State governments, which enable regular replenishing and flushing flows into the Lower Lakes, Coorong and through the Murray Mouth.
30 Year Plan and the Inner Metro Rim
Threat:
Lingering uncertainty about the plight of significant heritage items, faced with destruction and devaluation in the face of development proposals under the 30 Year Plan and Inner Metro Rim Plans.
Significance of Place:
There are many significant heritage items reflecting social, cultural, aesthetic, heritage and historic characteristics. Whilst not restricted to formal listings, many may be included on the Register of the National Estate, Commonwealth List, State Heritage Register, National Trust Classification and Local Heritage listings in Metropolitan Development Plans.
Description of Threat:
With the proposal for more intense urban development under the 30 Year Plan and the Inner Metro Rim Plans the degree of risk for heritage conservation will remain high, until a solution is absolutely agreed for satisfactorily dealing with heritage matters and their interface with development.
Heritage items may be re-assessed under new Development Plans.
Action Required:
Re-assessment of heritage processes under the Development Act.
Urgently secure items currently identified in heritage listings and prevent them from being de-listed.
Preservation of existing National, State and Local heritage lists needs to be guaranteed and updated and augmented with new listings, in line with current values and research material and methods.
Adelaide Parklands
Threat:
Continual appropriation of open space for commercial and government use, compromising the landscape, its cultural heritage and further degrading the last vestiges of remnant grassy understorey habitat.
Significance of Place:
The Parklands are a masterpiece of 19C urban planning being the most distinctive and unique asset of Adelaide’s cultural and natural landscape. The Parklands are a place of character and natural beauty for solitude and recreation and a definitive social and historical icon.
The Parklands have been identified as potentially constituting a “Cultural Landscape” under UNESCO’s Article 1 of World Heritage Convention (Jones 2007).
Description of Threat:
The main threat is the lack of implementation of any protection under National Heritage listing. In 1986 the NTSA made a submission to have the Parklands State Heritage Listed but this has not been processed. A second threat is the lack of implementation of the Adelaide Parklands Management Strategy established under the Adelaide Parklands Act 2005, eg. there has been no return of identified railway land to open space Parklands under the Park Lands Management Strategy (1999).
In addition;
- Parkland is being used for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital;
- The implications of the Adelaide Oval Redevelopment and Management Bill 2011 and Parkland are that parklands will be modified and used for car parking associated with the new Oval development;
- Indicative use of the Festival Plaza for a commercial development;
- Insertion of a special use pedestrian bridge into the parklands landscape on an, as yet, undetermined alignment from the southern exit of the Adelaide Oval to a position on the south bank;
- Further intensive development of the University of Adelaide campus on Parkland.
Action Required:
Give inalienable immediate protection from further commercial development which removes parkland from open public use.
Prohibit further alienation of Parklands by existing users.
Initiate a social contract to restore open space.
Conserve and rehabilitate existing open space.
Conserve and rehabilitate existing pockets of remnant grassy woodland communities.
Enforce existing planning and heritage listings.
Unlisted Local Heritage items under the Development Act 1993, applicable to Local Government areas in country South Australia
Threat:
Councils have not followed up on Heritage Surveys by appointing qualified Heritage Consultants to complete Assessment Reports. The Councils should have proceeded to submit Development Plan Amendments to the Planning Minister.
Significance of Place:
There are many significant heritage items reflecting social, cultural, aesthetic, heritage and historic characteristics within Local Government regions throughout country South Australia.
These have been previously identified in Regional Heritage Surveys carried out by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Description of Threat:
Councils have not followed up on Heritage Surveys by appointing qualified Heritage Consultants to complete Assessment Reports. The Councils need to submit Development Plan Amendments to the Planning Minister.
State Government funding support to assist this process has been withdrawn.
Action Required:
Reinstatement of recently withdrawn Government Subsidy to facilitate appointment of Heritage Consultants to carry out Assessment Reports.
Local Heritage items within Adelaide City Council (City Heritage)
Threat:
Uncertainty about the plight of significant heritage items potentially faced with demolition due to lack of transparent processes and the lack of protection through local heritage listing.
Significance of Place:
There are many significant heritage items reflecting social, cultural, aesthetic, heritage and historic characteristics within the Adelaide CBD.
Description of Threat:
A Local Heritage Survey was undertaken by Donovan & Associates – appointed as consultants to the Adelaide City Council (ACC). The consultant’s report was submitted to the Minister of Planning by Adelaide City Council in September 2009.
The ACC sought approval for community consultation to begin and Interim Development Control.
The Minister called for advice from the Development Policy Advisory Committee and Department of Planning & Local Government.
However no progress has been made thus far. The Report is yet to be released and listings remain confidential and not disclosed.
Demolition of heritage buildings, presumed to have been included in the Survey, have already occurred and these include:
Harris Scarfe - 1922 Rundle Mall building and
Treliving Warehouse - Light Square
Action Required:
Ministerial action urgently required.
National Trust Classification may be available.
Coastal Mangrove & Saltmarsh Communities
Threat:
The survival of mangrove and saltmarsh communities is directly affected by coastal development and constrained by loss of inland colonisation opportunities to adapt to changes wrought by climate change.
Significance of Place:
Mangroves and saltmarshes provide key habitat for many marine and terrestrial organisms, including roosting sites for migratory wading birds, feeding and refuge areas for fish and contain rare and endangered species of high conservation values. Tidal saltmarshes are an essential buffer between seaward mangroves and terrestrial ecosystems, regulating salinity and water velocity, and decreasing the suspended sediment load entering the marine environment. Mangroves and saltmarshes are highly productive and provide the base for food chains vital to fish nursery areas, including those stocks for commercial and recreational activity.
Description of Threat:
It is predicted that average sea levels in SA will rise by up to one metre as a result of climate change by 2100 (SA DENR). The survival of mangrove and saltmarsh communities locally and, in fact, world-wide will depend upon their capacity to colonise inland as waters rise. Existing developments (eg salt fields between Pt Adelaide and Pt Gawler) will prevent landward colonisation and cause extensive loss of these coastal ecosystems.
More immediately, mangrove and saltmarsh communities are at risk through coastal development. For example, proposed development on Torrens Island would inevitably have some impact on nearby mangrove and saltmarsh communities.
NOTE: Proposed development will also compromise the built heritage of the former Torrens Island Quarantine Station.
Action Required:
- Global, national and local action to address those factors that are contributing to climate change / sea level rise.
- Land use and land management practices (and associated development control) to ensure that opportunities for landward progression of saltmarsh and mangrove communities are maintained and not compromised. In addition, inappropriate developments in or near these communities – that may have adverse impacts through pollution, changes in tidal flow or sedimentation, must be avoided. These needs to be clearly recognised at all levels of development control.
- Where landward progression of these coastal ecosystems is already prevented or compromised (as by salt pans between Pt Adelaide and Pt Gawler) opportunities to remove those barriers should be considered and implemented where practicable.
Declining Birds of the Mount Lofty Ranges
Threat:
Birds in the Mt Lofty Ranges (MLR) are declining in diversity and abundance due to multiple threats. Only 14% of remnant native vegetation remains in the Adelaide Plains and MLR. Threats to the woodland avifauna include: continuing vegetation clearance and fragmentation of habitat, a reduction in nesting sites, the loss of key food plants, predation by foxes and cats and competition with introduced bird species and grazing by domestic stock and feral animals.
Simply retaining existing native vegetation will not arrest the decline in species. Large-scale habitat restoration is needed to address this situation. While the Adelaide Mt Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board (AMLRNRMB) has an aspirational goal in its regional plan for conservation and revegetation and to achieve a 30% native vegetation cover across the rural parts of the region, progress is slow.
Significance of Place:
The MLR are generally fertile with high rainfall and are recognised as a significant ecological region due to their isolation from similar ecosystems in the south-eastern part of the continent; this has produced a high number of endemic avian sub-species.
Professor Hugh Possingham from the University of Queensland, who instigated the Woodland Bird Monitoring Program with the Nature Conservation Society of S.A, warns that “The Mount Lofty Ranges is like a canary in a coal mine for Australia’s woodland landscapes—what happens here is an early warning for Australia’s other landscapes.” (p.2)* Eight bird species are locally extinct, two are critically endangered (Southern Emu-wren, Spotted Quail-thrush), one is endangered (Chestnut-rumped Heathwren), one is vulnerable (Australasian Bittern) and five are near threatened (Black-chinned Honeyeater, Hooded Robin, Bassian Thrush, Diamond Firetail, Bush Stone Curlew)
Action Required:
A rejuvenated and co-ordinated approach is urgently needed. This should be led by the regional AMLRNRM Board, in concert with government bodies such the Native Vegetation Council or a resurrected “Revegetation Committee” as well as private organisations with the aim of regenerating, revegetating, connecting and extending significant areas of woodland habitat on a broad scale.
Glenelg Ozone Cinema
Threat:
The Wallis Cinema company has obtained approval for demolition which is understood to be commencing.
Significance of Place:
The Glenelg Ozone is an unique South Australian interpretation of the Art Deco style, featuring a two-tone Basket Range sandstone façade, where most Art Deco facades are painted cement stucco. Other fine detailing such as blue tiles details with a nautical theme designed by leading SA architect Kenneth Milne make it significant.
In addition, it is the oldest (1937) remaining relatively intact purpose-built Art Deco cinema left in Adelaide – others such as the Chelsea (an earlier live theatre remodelled in the Art Deo style) and Capri date from the 1940s. It was still operating as a cinema until recently.
The Glenelg Ozone was once the proud flagship of the Waterman family chain of cinemas, a nationally significant operation which extended beyond SA.
Importantly, it forms a major part of the Jetty Road, Glenelg character, complementing other Art Deco buildings nearby, and represents the interwar seaside resort phenomenon where people escaped from the gloom of the depression.
Description of Threat:
Demolition imminent of the entire Cinema building for replacement by a two-storey retail outlet.
Action Required:
The State government should immediately intervene to stop demolition while the building is re-assessed for local heritage listing (previous assessment incorrectly included a date of 1957), and offer support to at least adaptive re-use of the building.
If the building succumbs to demolition, the State Government must review and update its legislative provisions to help prevent such important heritage slipping through the net again.
Urban Trees
Threat:
Destruction of green cover, property values, environmental amelioration, wild life, landscape fabric, cultural heritage and general amenity.
Significance of Place:
The tree-scapes of metropolitan Adelaide and the adjoining Mt Lofty Ranges have long been admired as features of special significance and to which an array of values can be attributed, including, but not limited to:
- Unique identification of place
- Remnancy and wildlife habitat
- Climate modification
- Visual, spiritual and psychological enrichment
- Economic benefits – tourism; increased land values and attractiveness of an area
- Educational and scientific research
- Recreation
- Cultural heritage & history
- Rarity
Description of Threat:
- Urban infill: subdivision to accommodate multiple dwellings results in formerly treed backyards being demolished for smaller courtyard homes and apartments.
- Urban expansion: residential development is continuing apace in former farmland that was characterised by scattered indigenous trees, including trees regarded as iconic Heysen gums.
- Inadequate legislative protection: Clearance controls under the State’s Native Vegetation Act include exemptions that severely impair the protection of native trees in urban environments. Further, the State Government has proposed a weakening of controls within the Development Act relating to retention of significant trees.
Action Required:
The threat can be removed by revised protective legislation.
Urban development is at the heart of this issue. There is a need for a substantial change in the way that urban development is controlled and managed. When new urban development is being considered, the protection, buffering and appropriate management of trees, needs to be a primary consideration. This warrants changes to the Development Act and the way that it is administered and, preferably, also warrants specific legislation to provide for tree protection and management.
Islington Rail Yards
Threat:
Approval has been given for the redevelopment of the northern portion of the site, which will result in the demolition of historic buildings and associated infrastructure.
Following rezoning for development in 2010 the southern section of the site was quickly cleared of all historic workshop buildings and almost all of its trees.
Significance of Place:
The Islington Railway Workshops have supported the State's railway system since the 1880s. The workshops are a unique and comprehensive industrial facility employing skilled tradespeople for over 130 years. The works include ornate Bluestone buildings
from the 1880s and more functional corrugated iron structures of the 1920s and 1940s.
It is notable that South Australia is the only state that has not heritage listed its railway workshops as a heritage complex.
Description of Threat:
In 2010 the site was rezoned to allow redevelopment for retail and commercial purposes. Historic buildings in the southern section have already been cleared for a major hardware store.
Demolition of the northern section for a supermarket and a discount department store is imminent, and will result in the loss of the historic 1882 Wood Mill. In the surviving central section, only six historic buildings are State Heritage listed.
Action Required:
The remaining central precinct needs to be State Heritage listed. A comprehensive study and conservation management plan are needed, including options for adaptive re-use. A new science and technology museum at this site would be a significant attraction for tourism and schools.
