by Carla Caruso

A keen green thumb has started a Facebook page to raise awareness of an urban forest on the city fringe. 

APA member Sue Lang (pictured) is behind the page, Friends of Narnungga Urban Forest.

The forest is also the focus of our Clean Up Australia event this coming Sunday, September 19, 2021. 

Come along at 1pm for a two-hour working bee. We’ll provide gloves and large bags for rubbish-collecting! Let us know you’re coming by booking here (free).

This 5.5ha forest was planted after the demolition (in 2010) of an SA Water depot.

It sits within Park 25, near the corner of Port Rd and James Congdon Drive (i.e. between the Thebarton Police Barracks and the Ice Arena.)

Sue lives “straight up the road” and has watched the forest grow over time. “It’s amazing; we’ve got a bushland, five minutes’ walk from the city.”

Sue regularly goes there for walks, to take photos, and to fly her kite with partner, Christopher. However, she says maintenance there has become a huge issue. “We’ve noticed people dumping stuff, like furniture, and others camping in there, so there’s plastic and junk everywhere. 

“It was being maintained for a while, and then, it seems to have been let go. I’m getting concerned that if it’s [further] let go, a developer will say, ‘Well, Council, it’s a dump, you’re not using it, we want it for development’, and I’m worried that we’ll lose our urban forest.” 

Sue hopes to get various groups interested in the site, from local schools for education about native plants and wildlife to butterfly conservation organisations – as “almost all the plants are butterfly plants”. 

Sue’s also a member of the Australian Labyrinth Network and plans to put in a proposal for a community labyrinth there. “Labyrinths can be made from anything; it can just be the simple placing of rocks in the right way to create the path that you need to go on. When you reach the centre, that’s when you can have that moment and space to just let go of everyday stress and problems.”

She also wants to lobby for public toilets to accompany the site’s picnic and barbecue facilities. 

Across the globe, urban forests are regenerating parcels of land no longer used for industry or transport corridors. Elsewhere in Adelaide, another new urban forest has recently been established in Reservoir Park/Kangatilla (Park 4). 

As Sue says: “Parks are more formal and ordered whereas an urban forest, although it does have design and planning to an extent, is more of a natural bushland experience …  I think [such a site] is needed, especially now for mental health, and just being able to be in a nice space.”

The Narnungga Urban Forest is in the western part of Park 25. This Park is bisected by two train lines.

The other side of Park 25, on the eastern side of the train lines, is dominated by playing fields, licensed to the SA Cricket Association.

This eastern portion of the Park also includes a skate park, which is under construction and due for completion in early 2022.

Park 25 is named after Gladys Elphick, the founding president of the Council of Aboriginal Women of South Australia. Its Kaurna name, Narnungga, means “native pine place”.