by Carla Caruso

Coincidence or not? Just at a time when the State Government has proposed rezoning the Park Lands’ riverbank for development, it’s throwing money at the waterway.

A new $5 million ‘Transforming the Torrens’ program has been announced. It’ll be delivered over the next four years by Green Adelaide – a government-supported organisation – in partnership with the Adelaide City Council.

The program will see more native plants and a series of wetlands established along a 3km section of the River Torrens / Karrawirra Pari in the CBD – between the Torrens Weir and Hackney Bridge.

In a press release, Environment Minister David Speirs said the program would “also help further improve water quality along the river, particularly in Torrens Lake” and contribute to “Adelaide’s push to become an internationally-known National Park City”. 

City of Adelaide Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor says it’s an important investment in one of the city’s greatest assets. 

“This area is extremely significant to the traditional owners of the Adelaide Plains, the Kaurna people, so increasing the natural features of Karrawirra Pari with native vegetation and attracting local wildlife is another important step towards reconciliation.”

There’s no mention of incorporating a filtered, natural pool within the lake, as pitched by Business SA in August.

Could the platypus make a comeback?

The Torrens program also complements a scoping study, which is currently underway, exploring the reintroduction of platypus to the river. 

The monotremes - or egg-laying mammals - have been missing from the waterway since about 1880. Urban development served to wipe them out. Platypuses do, however, exist in other city rivers like Melbourne’s Yarra. 

Still, not all believe the return of the platypus is possible here. 

Among the sceptics is activist Ann Marie Lee, below, who’s behind the Facebook page, Friends of the Torrens River. 

“The platypus is extinct here [in mainland South Australia]; they cannot do it,” Lee told us. 

“You would have to fence the river because we have foxes. The platypus would not last five minutes. Foxes are everywhere in Adelaide. You can’t start putting gates on streets and everything, so that’s a stupid idea.”

David Cobbold, a co-owner of the Warrawong Wildlife Sanctuary in Mylor, has previously said something similar. His fully-fenced sanctuary is the only place in mainland SA, where visitors can see platypus, albeit in captivity. 

Cobbold told The Advertiser in July: “You can take care of an ecosystem and the animals know what to do but … platypus are predated upon by cats and foxes … so unless you’re going to feral-proof the entire Torrens, what’s your plan?” 

The non-profit Australian Platypus Conservancy lists other conservation issues for the threatened species on its site.

Respecting the river and its surrounds

The platypus’ return aside, Lee is all for cleaning up the river. She regularly walks her dogs along the Linear Park Trail and started her Facebook page to help promote protection of the area.

“It would be a great time to get stuck in and clear this poor river of the disgusting kikuyu grass at least five to ten metres from the water’s edge and allow it to breathe,” Lee says.

“The other thing I notice is, when my dogs actually get into the river – what we laughingly call a river – they come out and there’s all the oil and grease that’s washed off the road [on them]. It’s just a hideous, black sludge and that’s what’s on the bottom.

“All the rubbish that people wish to wash off the roads and what have you – and you can’t police it either, but there’s a lot of building sites and so forth – they rinse everything straight into the Torrens.”

Lee believes Adelaideans should appreciate the riverbank area more.

“As I walk, I often think, ‘Why aren’t there more people out here enjoying this?’ Even people in the park have got earphones in and they’re looking at their phones, and you think to yourself, ‘For Christ’s sake, open your eyes and look. It’s just stunningly beautiful.’

“Our ancestors had the foresight of, instead of just being like a [developing] country and throwing all your rubbish in the river, somebody – I think it was Don Dunstan, around that time – said, ‘Hang on a minute, we’re going to claim this as Linear Park and clean it up.’

“So, this magnificent park that we now have, like everything else, is just taken for granted. ‘Oh, it’s there.’ But people have worked bloody hard to pull it back from being a junkyard.”

Lee says fighting for worthy causes is “in the blood”. Her grandmother, Marie Elizabeth Skitch, was the first woman to stand for parliament in South Australia, though she didn’t succeed.  In 1926, Skitch made her inaugural public speech at Botanic Park but was arrested for speaking out about socialist politics. Skitch Reserve in Melrose Park honours the family. 

Meanwhile, the environment has been high on the State Government’s agenda of late in the wake of the UN’s climate change conference. Just last week, it announced another $5 million in funding to ‘green’ Adelaide’s CBD via street plantings, green wall and roof grants, and more.