Glenelg Receives Green Adelaide Grassroots Grant

We are very excited to announce that we have received a Green Adelaide Grassroots Grant for a cooperative project with Royal Adelaide and Grange Golf Club. This is one of the first times in Australia where golf courses have received a grant to work cooperatively on such a significant project.

Our project, Establishing a plant preservation partnership and creating habitat connectivity on Adelaide’s sand dune golf courses, aims to connect vegetation pockets within our courses and create habitat corridors between our courses; hold educational workshops on local Kaurna history and cultural burning practices; and install nest boxes and bee hotels made by the nearby Camden Park Men’s Shed.

Awarding this grant to our collective clubs shows the importance that golf clubs play in urban biodiversity. As habitat disappears in urban areas at a rapid rate, golf courses provide a much-needed refuge for fauna. Golf courses also hold some of the last remnant populations of indigenous plants on the Adelaide Plains.

As part of the project, we will swap seeds and plant material between courses to create back up populations. These plant populations on each other’s courses will secure seedstock and plant material for our projects, for approved growers to use for other projects and will preserve and protect the plants for future generations.

The Grassroots Grants program helps to create a greener, wilder and more climate-resilient metropolitan Adelaide. The grants underpin Green Adelaide’s commitment to build partnerships, work tougher to support our landscapes to thrive which leads to health and resilient communities, prosperous businesses and flourishing ecosystems.

We are thankful to Green Adelaide and Minister David Speirs for their support and enthusiasm for our project. We would also like to thank individuals and organisations both internationally and around Australia for providing us with support and encouragement: GEO Foundation, Golf Australia, the ASTMA, Trees for Life, Neil Crafter from Crafter Mogford, Kate Torgersen from Environmental Golf Solutions, Celeste Kylie-Hill, Dr Phil Bagust and Penny Paton (AM).

Monina Gilbey
Biodiversity Manager