The Little Desert in western Victoria, lying south of the Western Highway that links Melbourne and Adelaide, was the subject of an intensive grassroots-led lobbying campaign in the late 1960s against a proposal to clear its native bushland for agriculture. A browse through newspaper archives of the period surprise one even now at the breadth and depth of the opposition to the government’s plans.

Kaniva Flower Show 1973 – flyer.

Various leaflets by the National Parks Service – birds, the Mallee-Fowl, tourist guides.

The following account of this modern park is adapted from a Victorian Government website:

Oscar Meyer, chair of the West Gate Bridge Authority, is credited with the inspiration for the establishment of Westgate Park. He wanted to create “a beautiful park straddling the Yarra River to complement his sculptural bridge”. He developed this vision soon after the completion of the bridge in the late 1970s. The federal Government funded the development of Westgate Park to mark Victoria’s sesquicentenary in 1984-85.

The area under the bridge had seen a variety of uses, including sand extraction, an aerodrome and car-racing. Much earlier, the area was part of the lower Yarra wetlands, with extensive saltmarsh, swamps, vegetation and bird life. During the construction of the bridge, the area was the base for building works and was the site of a large works depot. In 1979, the Age described the land seen from the newly opened bridge as “scrofulous scenery indeed … dead water, swamp, sick factories, dead wood, haze, gasping barges, wretched refineries, wheezing chimneys, dead grass, institutional putrefaction”.

Following the completion of the bridge, the future Westgate Park site was cleaned up and a former sand mine was converted to a salt water lake.

Consultants Loder & Bayly and landscape architect Bruce Mackenzie, won a competition with an ambitious design relying on a constructed landscape of hills and access tracks which framed and created views of the West Gate Bridge as the central sculptural feature, and with fresh and saltwater lakes as focal points. Planned features included an island visitors’ centre, as well as “the planting of Australian flora, improvement of bird habitat and the incorporation of a narrow-gauge railway, a sound shell and sculptures”.

The then Victorian Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands carried out the initial work in forming the park, creating mounds between two lakes using building waste, with help from participants in a government works program for the unemployed. A modest realisation of the original design, with several features deferred or removed, was opened and dedicated to the people of Victoria on 7 November 1985.

The following year, Westgate Park became the responsibility of the MMBW Parks Division, but was largely neglected over the following decade. During this period, sculptural work (Earth Series, 1990) by Lyn Moore was added to the park. In 1996 Melbourne Parks and Waterways announced an extension of the park to meet the river. The intention was to transform it from a ‘derelict wasteland’. A new design plan was developed but was not fully realised.

The Friends of Westgate Park was formed in 1999 and this volunteer group became pivotal to the management, development, and expansion of the site. The Friends undertook the installation of infrastructure and extensive planting, with the objective of gradually converting the vegetation to what was typical of pre-settlement Melbourne.

Through the efforts of the Friends, extra land was acquired from 2003-2016. Parks Victoria is now responsible for Westgate Park. The Friends group continues to improve the park and acts as an advocate for its development. A large number of bird species now inhabit the park, including cormorants, black swans and pelicans. The area is again becoming a wetland haven.

Dr Geoff Edwards, Secretary of PaRC, writes:

Early in my time as an officer of the Department of Crown Lands and Survey, about 1975, a senior land administration officer took me on an inspection of part of the wasteland now known as Westgate Park. Noticing foul-smelling smoke rising out of the ground, I stepped closer to investigate, but beat a hasty retreat as the soles of my shoes became very, very hot. I was informed that the site was used as a sand quarry for building materials for early Melbourne. Later it was backfilled with garbage. At some time the rotting mass caught fire. The fire brigade regularly turned out to grass fires.

Although the Department had recently established a new Division of Crown Land Management to upgrade the standard of management of Crown lands and reserves, the remediation and development of Westgate was too ambitious for the nascent group with its shoestring budget to take on. The task required a body with the capacity of Melbourne Parks and Waterways.

Personal involvement in the outdoors, and in particular, in bush regeneration, can be expressed via a wide spectrum of opportunities in all states of Australia, from couch surfing, online activities, motor touring and bushwalking to joining a Friends group… and even to owning a slice of a bushland property along with other like-minded people.

In various states a number of properties have been purchased by cooperatives: to protect them from development, to regenerate them, or simply to allow the members to enjoy the outdoor experience together.

The earliest cooperatives in Victoria were the Round the Bend Conservation Cooperative on the Yarra River in Kangaroo Ground (1971), a residential conservation community with an objective of building environmentally friendly houses; the Montrose Environment Group Co-op’s 9 acres at Wartook, northern Grampians (1971); the Moora Moora Co-operative Community at Mt Toolebewong (1974), another residential community; one in the north-western Grampians; and Urimbirra Cooperative Society Ltd in the northern Little Desert (1973).

Land held by a “cooperative” can be held under a number of different legal forms: for example, a group title/strata title/community title (the states have different regimes); a company limited by guarantee; or a cooperative under state law (such as the Co-operatives National Law (Victoria) Act 2013) which in recent years has conformed to the Australian Uniform Co-operative Laws Agreement.

The Urimbirra story is illustrative

The Urimbirra Co-operative Society was formed in 1973 to acquire and protect remnant bushland in the Little Desert region of the Wimmera district of Victoria. It followed the conservation battle of the late 1960s against State Government and AMP plans to alienate and subdivide most of the Crown land in this area for farming. At the time of purchase, privately owned bushland properties in good condition were still being sold for farming purposes. Professional people from outside the area were incentivised to buy the land through tax concessions on clearing costs. ln this area, the climate and soil type ensured that, once it was used for farming purposes, the land was likely to revert to a weedy scrub after the first drought year. There are several examples of properties close to Urimbirra which have been devastated in this way.
The Blackburn & District Tree Preservation Society, which had a substantial involvement in the fight to save the Little Desert from subdivision for farming, decided to form a co-operative to buy 400 hectares of remnant bush for conservation. Shares were sold at $25 per share. In 1995, the Cooperative acquired a further 600 hectares of adjoining land. Today, Urimbirra has over 150 active shareholders and owns 1,040 hectares of land under Trust for Nature conservation covenants.
The Urimbirra blocks are located on the northern boundary of the Little Desert National Park between Nhill and Kaniva. The blocks sit on a mix of sandy soils of low natural fertility (named Lowan Sands) and shallow clay with some sandstone. The low natural fertility of the soils supports a diverse range of Mallee shrublands, woodlands and heathlands as well as Yellow Gum, Black Box and Desert Stringybark woodlands that sustain rich biodiversity. Thanks to Alex English, Secretary, for this account.

Shunting yards adjoining Roma St railway terminus, on the fringe of Brisbane’s CBD, were shunted out of this prime location and a political decision was taken to develop the vacant public land as a public park. Submissions were invited and reviewed by a steering committee convened by the Department of Public Works. This leaflet outlines the strategic intention and the submission process.

The Department of Natural Resources submitted an innovative proposal for a learning centre, called “Living Waters”. A copy of this report has surfaced from the cellars where government reports go after they have served their purpose at the time and will be attached. The submission did not find favour and the committee opted for a more traditional city park. The park subsequently won design awards.