“Australia’s Big Outdoor Museum – The Magnificent Flinders Ranges”

The Flinders Ranges, which is a National Landscape and is now being pursued for World Heritage, comprises a number of serial sites within a topographically and environmentally varied geographic region of South Australia containing outstanding scenic, environmental, cultural, historical and, above all, scientific values.  

The Flinders Ranges have been described as ‘one great big outdoor museum’ by Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson,  one of Australia’s most distinguished geologists. https://www.geoexpro.com/articles/2019/04/australia-s-big-outdoor-museum-the-magnificent-flinders-ranges

As an exemplar of geodiversity in the Earth’s  geological record, the Ediacaran fossil assemblage of the Flinders Ranges also celebrates the very birth of the Earth’s biodiversity.

As one of Australia’s most significant National Landscapes, the Flinders Ranges has the making of being also declared as another UNESCO World Heritage Site – a truly iconic geotourism destination!

The Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife (FNPW) with the Flinders Ranges Ediacara Foundation and the SA Government has created a new national park as a key core component of this vision .

In June 2022, Leisure Solutions® had planned to lead a special five day tour to the Flinders  Ranges to celebrate this project, but subsequently cancelled because of the continuing  impact of the  COVID  pandemic. For the record, refer to the brochure from the proposed  Flinders-Ranges-50th-Anniversary-Tour-June 2022

The Royal Geographical Soc SA  has developed an APP for discovering some 17 walking trails across the Flinders Ranges.

  

Australia’s National Landscape Programme – Background

Launched in June 2008, the Australian National Landscapes  (ANL) Programme was introduced by Parks Australia and Tourism Australia in collaboration with state/territory national parks agencies, state and regional tourism organisations, local government and industry ‘to differentiate Australia’s iconic natural and cultural destinations from anything else available in the world’

As a long-term strategic partnership between tourism and conservation the program aimed to

• promote world-class, high-quality visitor experiences,
• increase the value of tourism to regional economies,
• enhance the role of protected areas in those economies,
• build support for protecting Australia’s natural and cultural assets, and
• engage local communities, including First Nations peoples.

In 2014, the then Australian Government decided to discontinue the ANL programme on the basis that Ecotourism Australia continued limited coordination of this initiative for a couple of years.  Australia’s peak tourism industry association (Tourism and Transport Forum) in the June 2017 report, Unlocking Our Great Outdoors recommended support for further development of these prime natural destinations.

From a geomorphological perspective, the 16 landscapes could be categorised as being as follows.

• Continental: Red Centre*, Flinders Ranges, Blue Mountains*, and the Australian Alps.
• Coastal Hinterland: Kakadu*, The Kimberley*, Great South West Edge of WA, Ningaloo-Shark Bay*, Great Ocean Road, Daintree Wet Tropics*, Green Cauldron of SE Qld/Mt Warning NSW*, Australia’s Coastal Wilderness of NSW/Victoria, and Sydney Harbour.
• Island: Kangaroo Island and much of Tasmania*
• Great Barrier Reef*.

Those landscapes marked * embraced UNESCO World Heritage Areas (WHAs) with the Flinders Ranges now positioned as an approved nomination.

The international GeoExpro magazine has featured  five of these ANLs as geotourism feature articles, as follows.

Australia’s ‘Big Red’ Centre, GeoExPro, Vol 13, No 2 -2016

A Wonderful Wild Wilderness, the Kimberleys, GeoExpro.Vol 14, No 2-2017

Australia’s Big Outdoor Museum: The Magnificent Flinders Ranges, Vol 16, No 1 – 2019

Australia’s Amazing South West Corner: The Great South West Edge, Vol 17, No 3 – 2020

Tasmania – A Geotourism Hotspot, Vol 19, No 6 -2022

In several respects, the ANL programme had similarities to UNESCO’s Global Geopark program (formally established in 2015) where geoparks could be established to enhance awareness, appreciation, and protection of geoheritage within single, unified geographical areas, where sites and landscapes of international geological significance could be managed with a holistic concept of protection, education, and sustainable development.

Whilst the ‘highest order’ of sustainable geotourism can be accommodated through the establishment of geoparks, in the same way that the ANL programme embracing WHAs and national parks might be seen as the highest order of protection and enjoyment for biodiversity, culture, and geodiversity, the establishment of geoparks serve to highlight one form of geotourism.

With this in mind, Australian government geoscience agencies now accept the concept of a land designation known as ‘GeoRegions’, with approved guidelines for their establishment; as an essential exploratory step to enable assessment by government and consultation with communities for any geopark proposals e.g. the current Ku-ring-gai GeoRegion  https://bit.ly/3Lixasb  is located within the former Sydney Harbour ANL.

Leisure Solutions® Engagement  with Australian National Landscapes

In recent years, Leisure Solutions® has taken an active role in developing geotours in the iconic national landscapes of Australia’s Green Cauldron  Australia’s Red Centre and the Greater Blue Mountains.   In addition, in support of Geotourism Australia’s National Geotourism Strategy, Leisure Solutions® has taken a leading role in the establishment and development of the Ku-ring-gai GeoRegion and www.kuringgaigeoregion.au  forming part of the former Sydney Harbour National Landscape.