Some of the Friends of Waite Conservation Reserve Committee L to R: Chris Kaczan (President), Peter Lang, Peter Bird, Joe Haslam (Secretary), Jennifer Gardner.          Not present: Lynda Yates, Peter Barnes, Stephen Wait, Grant Joseph, Helen Pryor, Meg Byrt

Meet the Friends of Waite Conservation Reserve Committee

Peter Barnes

Peter Bird
I confess to being a being a life-long natural history junkie, especially interested in native mammals, reptiles, birds & plants. I have a degree in ecology and am employed by the Animal & Plant Control Commission at Waite Campus where I work on the biology and control of vertebrate pests including rabbits, foxes, dingoes, birds and mice. In recent years my research has centred on the impact of rabbits on the ecology of Coorong National Park and the benefits from Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease. For 18 years I was coordinator of the Nature Conservation Society/ Sunday Mail Walks with Nature program which took 40 000 unsuspecting people on free interpretive walks through Mt Lofty Ranges National Parks and reserves. In my spare time I collect local seed and grow plants to revegetate the family farm, which like the Waite Reserve, is dominated by grey box woodland. On paper my credentials in natural history, pest animal control, bushwalking and habitat restoration look good; my hope is I can turn this potential into a useful contribution to the management of the reserve.

Dr Jennifer Gardner
My involvement in the area began in 1990 when, with the support of the then Director of the Waite Institute, Prof. Harold Woolhouse, a committee of interested Waite Campus staff formed to develop a walking trail through the Waite hills land. In 1992, I was an inaugural member of the Waite Hills Management Committee, chaired by the Director, and formed to advise him on restoration of the bushland following the removal of sheep and the declaration that henceforth the Waite hills land was to be a Reserve. At that time my half time position as Curator of the Waite Arboretum was expanded to a full time position with additional responsibilities for the development of the Gardens of the Urrbrae House Historic Precinct and the management of the Waite Conservation Reserve. As an ex officio member of the Committee I keep the Friends informed about the University's policies and management of the Reserve. I also welcome advice and suggestions from the Friends on all matters relating to the Reserve.

Joe Haslam (Secretary)

I had known about the reserve of course. My wife Barbara had worked at CSIRO on Hartley Grove for a number of years, and she introduced me and the kids to a pleasant walking trail in the hills behind the Waite campus. The steep bit up that gully, the lovely views from the top, initially to the gulf in the west, and later to the Belair ridge to the south, and then that difficult downhill bit past the big water tank, where the pebbles on the path were like ball bearings under your feet. Yes, I knew the reserve. But it was only a walking track to me, through some pleasant scrub. I could tell a wattle from a eucalypt, and I could recognise that prickly bush that you shouldn’t brush past, but that was about it.

Fortunately, I saw a notice advertising the initial meeting called to form the Friends – exactly three years ago as I write this. I attended, and a whole new world of interest opened up to me. I discovered a world of native plant species and introduced weeds, of little pockets of remnant native vegetation which were all that remained after decades of intensive grazing, of dedicated scientists and amateur bush carers, and perhaps most of all, a sense of the long term, of the timelessness of nature.

At about the same time I retired, and joined the Friends of Urrbrae Wetland too. Here I started to learn about a range of native trees, shrubs and grasses which had been specially selected as being typical of what would have existed prior to European settlement. They were all set out in relative isolation – easy to see and identify.

So armed with this limited knowledge, beginner’s knowledge it is fair to say, it has been a real joy to me over the past three years to participate in working bees in the Waite Reserve and to come across many of those same species in the wild. And when you see them in the natural bush, it makes you realise how precious these remaining areas of woodland are.

Sure, I’ve still got plenty to learn, but it adds a new dimension to my awareness of nature to now be able to see and identify a little yellow Hibbertia, a chocolate lily Arthropodium or a Dianella when previously I wouldn’t even have noticed them. I would have just enjoyed that nice walking track. It has also been good to get involved with weed eradication. I now know about the terrible spread of olives in the Adelaide Hills. But how is it that an intelligent person like me never previously recognised this as a major issue?

I am mildly angry that my primary and secondary education taught me about the glorious British colonies marked pink in the atlas, made me remember and recite the names of the major European rivers from the Vistula to the Guadalquivir, and served up truckloads of English poetry and other literature, but didn’t give me any understanding of nature. Happily, that situation is changing significantly for the better.

And even those darned olives have given me pleasure in the Waite Conservation Reserve. Why is that, you ask? Because of one of my happiest memories in recent times is of a working bee in April 2003. A majestic red gum on the track from the top of Wild Dog Glen to the Southern boundary was surrounded by a thicket of juvenile olives. Over the years birds had sat on the branches, and dropped olive seeds which then germinated. There were scores and scores of them, from small seedlings to specimens about 2 meters high. If they were not removed, the gum tree would have been starved of water and nutrients, and most probably would have died. We pulled out the littlies, and cut and dabbed the larger specimens, and killed the lot.

On revisiting six months later, not one olive plant was to be seen. In their place, just as Waldo had predicted, was a carpet of bulbine lilies, rejoicing in the sunlight which had previously been blotted out by the olives. I felt a sense of renewal, and of satisfaction that I had contributed to something good that would last far beyond my lifetime. That’s why I am a Friend of the Reserve.

Grant Joseph

Chris Kaczan (President)
I'm a local resident who enjoys walking on weekends through the Reserve. As part of these walks I am trying to "work as I walk" and pull number of olive seedlings as I stroll along. As a teacher at Urrbrae Agricultural High School I am particularly interested in working with students on weed control and park management.

Dr Peter Lang

Lynda Yates (Treasurer)
I have always been keen on environmental issues. I originally wanted to be a vet but ended up with a degree in Physiology and Zoology followed by an Environmental Resources Masters at Salford (an ideal place to see the ugliness and pollution created in this conurbation so close to the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution). After a dissertation on a nature reserve in Devon (where I counted woody lobelia and trapped voles in Longworth traps) I looked for work and ended up as a computer programmer in the Civil Service in Cardiff, Wales. I moved to London after a few years and spent 10 years there as an analyst/programmer, mainly doing contracts for banks in the City of London. I kept up an interest in the local environment - Perivale Woods, one of the few bluebell woods left near London, was close by. I took a break in 1989 for eighteen months to travel and ended up in Fremantle Australia for 3 months. On returning to London I decided there were better places to live despite the 'a man who is tired of London is tired of life' quotation (things have changed since Samuel Johnson's day eg. rush hour, the Tube, suburbia). I emigrated to Adelaide on the strength of a job at WorkCover in late 1993 and stayed there 5 years. I am currently 'resting' as they say in the theatre and enjoying myself very much. I volunteer at the Waite Arboretum, do morris dancing, swim, take my dogs for walks and wonder how I had time to fit work in!!

Stephen Wait