National Park Cities Forum

Mr DULUK (Waite) (14:23): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Can the minister update the house on the second international forum for national park cities held in Adelaide last week and how this forum fits with the state government's vision to make Adelaide a national park city?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:23): I thank the member for Waite for his question and note his particular interest in national parks, given that our oldest national park, Belair National Park, is within the boundaries of his electorate.

It was a great pleasure last week to be able to host the second international forum on national park cities here in Adelaide. This is a relatively new body of thinking that looks at how national parks can be more than just areas that are fenced off for preservation and protection, but can actually be areas that are integrated with cities and bring people, who live in cities, along on that journey around environmental preservation. This is an idea that really had its genesis in London last year. A body of work has been done in London and they travelled out to Adelaide to host a panel prior to the second conference, exploring national park cities, which was held at the beginning of the week in Melbourne.

It was excellent to be able to host Jayne Miller, the Chair of World Urban Parks; the CEO of World Urban Parks, Neil McCarthy; and a British expert in the concept of national park cities, Dan Raven-Ellison. They were able to spend time working with the Department for Environment and Water and environmental NGOs looking at how we can make our cities as green and as ecologically vibrant as possible.

Of course, that builds very well on the body of work that the state government is pursuing around the reform of natural resources management and, in particular, in the creation of Green Adelaide—a new body that is very focused on matters like protecting Adelaide's metropolitan coastline, looking after Adelaide's river and wetland environments and greening our city streets and parks in a very bold and visionary way.

We worked alongside experts who came from all across the world to take part in this panel, combined with our NGO sector and our government sector, to talk about how Adelaide could be this incredibly green and ecologically vibrant city in the future. We were very specific about how we direct what will become the Green Adelaide levy, the evolution of the NRM levy, to be on very focused work. We talked about the importance of partnerships with the NGO sector and partnerships with the local government sector to leverage additional funding for these projects and, in particular, to work alongside community, understanding what they want for our urban environment and involving them through activity in their own backyards in creating this concept of the national park city.

It is a vision that not only sits well with our ideas for Green Adelaide but also, of course, with Glenthorne national park, our project to create that new national park in Adelaide's southern suburbs, working alongside the community very closely in a way that ensures that we are not only protecting existing open space but looking at that open space which is often the most common open space found in cities, which is people's backyards: how do you connect your backyard with the environment, and how do you really inspire people in local communities to get involved in creating this concept of a national park city.

I look forward to being able to update the house in the coming months and years as we pursue Green Adelaide, as we develop Glenthorne national park, and as we really drive forward that idea for Adelaide to be seen as a green, ecologically vibrant city that has so much to give not only to the environment but to the wellbeing of our population.