



Following the establishment of the Friends of Onkaparinga Park [FOOP] in 1986 volunteers from the group have provided thousands of hours of their time transforming both the National and Recreation Parks from heavily grazed farming land to something more like it looked when European settlers first arrived in 1836. There is ample photographic evidence which shows the transformation from denuded open hillsides to the pleasant bushland we see nowadays.
Volunteers have assisted the National Parks and Wildlife Service in managing the unique features of the parks by removing thousands of woody weeds such as European Olives and English Ash. Removing or relocating fence lines, re-vegetating devastated areas by planting the threatened Eucalyptus Microcarpa [Grey Box] to a more representative example of a natural woodland. It is difficult to see but the National Park was open paddocks punctuated by contour banks which had been put in by farmers to control erosion. Sadly erosion still occurred now mostly controlled after the efforts of FOOP workers.
Much of this work is ongoing giving both volunteers and visitors the opportunity to appreciate this area’s native flora and fauna in a beautiful setting.
FOOP volunteers have collected seeds from many native tree, shrub and grass species for propagating tube-stock for the annual re-vegetation programme. Volunteers provided citizen science data to ecologists studying the parks in sectors like water quality, fish monitoring along with an ongoing biological control programme to control a particularly difficult weed problem that being the Drooping Tree Prickly Pear. An extremely hardy weed which is problematic for volunteers to remove/control. FOOP has a breeding nursery for Cochineal beetles which are then distributed onto the pest plants helping to reduce their numbers.
The above examples serve to illustrate the variety of work that volunteers undertake to help make the natural environment in the Onkaparinga River National and Recreation Parks an exhilarating experience for visitors and locals alike.