| Simpson Desert Conservation Park South Australia | |
|---|---|
IUCN category Ia (strict nature reserve) | |
Rangers looking at Approdinna Attora Knolls in the Simpson Desert Conservation Park | |
  Simpson Desert Conservation Park | |
| Nearest town or city | Oodnadatta [1] |
| Coordinates | 26°14′46″S137°52′23″E / 26.2461486829999°S 137.872967886°E Coordinates: 26°14′46″S137°52′23″E / 26.2461486829999°S 137.872967886°E [2] |
| Established | 14 December 1967 [3] |
| Area | 6,932.68 km2 (2,676.7 sq mi) [4] |
| Managing authorities | Department of Environment and Water |
| Website | Simpson Desert Conservation Park |
| See also | Protected areas of South Australia |
Simpson Desert Conservation Park (formerly Simpson Desert National Park) is a protected area located in the Australian state of South Australia about 970 kilometres (600 mi) north of the state capital of Adelaide and above 215 kilometres (134 mi) north-east of the town of Oodnadatta. [5] [1]
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the enabling laws of each country or the regulations of the international organizations involved.
South Australia is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres (379,725 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and fifth largest by population. It has a total of 1.7 million people, and its population is the second most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital, Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second largest centre, has a population of less than 30,000.
Adelaide city centre is the innermost locality of Greater Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It is known by locals simply as "The City" or "Town" to distinguish it from Greater Adelaide and from the City of Adelaide. The locality is split into two key geographical distinctions: the city "square mile", bordered by North, East, South and West Terraces; and the section of the parklands south of the River Torrens which separates the built up part of the city from the surrounding suburbs and North Adelaide.
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The conservation park occupies land within the Simpson Desert in the gazetted locality of the same name. It is bounded by the borders of the Northern Territory and Queensland to its north and by the Simpson Desert Regional Reserve to its west, south and east. [5] [1]
The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth largest Australian desert, with an area of 176,500 km2 and is the world's largest sand dune desert.
Simpson Desert is a locality in the Australian state of South Australia located about 920 kilometres north of the capital city of Adelaide and which is located within the desert of the same name.
The Northern Territory is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. It shares borders with Western Australia to the west, South Australia to the south, and Queensland to the east. To the north, the territory looks out to the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, including Western New Guinea and other Indonesian islands. The NT covers 1,349,129 square kilometres (520,902 sq mi), making it the third-largest Australian federal division, and the 11th-largest country subdivision in the world. It is sparsely populated, with a population of only 246,700, making it the least-populous of Australia's eight states and major territories, with fewer than half as many people as Tasmania.
The land within the boundaries of the conservation park first obtained protected area status on 14 December 1967 as a national park proclaimed under the National Parks Act 1966. [3] [6] On 27 April 1972, the national park was reconstituted as the Simpson Desert Conservation Park upon the proclamation of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 . [7] As of 2018, it covered an area of 6,932.68 square kilometres (2,676.72 sq mi). [4]
In combination with Simpson Desert Regional Reserve and Witjira National Park, it forms a protected area representing one of the world's best examples of dunal desert. A wide variety of desert flora and fauna are protected in a landscape of varied dune systems, extensive playa lakes, spinifex grasslands and Acacia woodlands. These trees soak up water from underground water springs.[ citation needed ]
Witjira National Park is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia about 987 kilometres north of the state capital of Adelaide.
In physical geography, a dune is a hill of loose sand built by aeolian processes (wind) or the flow of water. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, formed by interaction with the flow of air or water. Most kinds of dunes are longer on the stoss (upflow) side, where the sand is pushed up the dune, and have a shorter "slip face" in the lee side. The valley or trough between dunes is called a slack. A "dune field" or erg is an area covered by extensive dunes.
A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to the processes of denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the world is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions where little precipitation occurs and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts". Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location.
In an unprecedented move, it and the Simpson Desert Regional Reserve were closed to public access by the state government from 1 December 2008 to 15 March 2009 due to extreme heat during the Australian summer. [8]
The conservation park is classified as an IUCN Category Ia protected area. [2] In 1980, it was listed on the now-defunct Register of the National Estate. [5]
The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in data gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, and education. IUCN's mission is to "influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable".
The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. It has been replaced by the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heritage List and various state and territory heritage registers.
