Australia’s longest-running and most prestigious sustainability awards recognise leadership in biodiversity, climate change, and First Nations people, reinforcing the diversity of sustainability with over 15 categories. This year, Glenelg Golf Club is a finalist for the Biodiversity Award. The Biodiversity award recognises outstanding initiatives by an organisation or organisations in collaboration that work to conserve, protect, and restore our habitat, flora and/or fauna to ensure Australia’s ecosystems are secured and flourish for future generations.
Course Superintendent, Tim Warren, and Biodiversity Manager, Monina Gilbey are changing misconceptions around Golf courses and their drain on the environment by creating a greener future and protecting urban biodiversity.
As green spaces disappear rapidly and significantly in urban areas, golf courses have become a major and fundamental contributor to urban biodiversity by providing a protected haven for wildlife. Over ninety species of birds can be found at Glenelg Golf.
As well as birds, the course has three hundred and forty-four insect species, as well as fish, reptiles, microbats, turtles and frogs.
It seems counterintuitive, but their status as private land has meant that Adelaide’s golf courses contain some of the Adelaide Plains’ last remaining indigenous plant populations. Glenelg Golf Club houses over 40 plants of conservation significance.
Local plants are not only integral to providing nectar and pollen sources for native insects and habitat for local fauna, but need to be protected now before they become extinct. Being on private land means that plants of conservation significance can be protected and flourish without risk of damage or trampling by people, or their dogs, as would happen in a park or nature reserve.
Glenelg Golf Club has joined forces with three other clubs and received government funding for a project entitled Establishing a plant preservation partnership and creating habitat connectivity on Adelaide’s sand dune golf courses, which aims to create habitat corridors between the four group one (top tier courses) golf courses on Adelaide’s sand belt and swap conservation rated plant material between the courses.
Glenelg Golf Club are reducing water use through better irrigation technology, changing irrigation patterns and replacing managed turf with indigenous plants.
The relationships we have established have led to their involvement in a butterfly rewilding program and studies into invertebrates and microbats.
To find out more about Glenelg’s Biodiversity practices click here.
For more information about the National Banksia Sustainability Awards and the Banksia Foundation please click here.
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