1982 - present
See article in The Islander Wednesday 21 June 2017 Dene Cordes, Manager of Community Services for Parks and Wildlife in Adelaide, persuaded the department to set up a system of managing parks, eventually leading to the formation of over 100 separate Friends of Parks groups in SA.
Please click on the attached Word document below, for a splendid history of the "Friends" written by the President Brian DuBois. "Telling Our Story - Friends of Parks 1982-2007"
Here are some extracts:
A lot of the success of the Friends programme is due to Dene Cordes. From the outset he absolutely adopted the scheme – it became his baby. His enthusiasm and drive was just what we needed to get the programme up and running.[i] ...
In early 1981, NCS received expressions of interest from a number of informal groups wanting to establish themselves as Friends of Parks groups. ... Bob Nichols then took up the challenge and in June 1982 gave Dene Cordes, Manager, Community Liaison Unit, the role of initiating and managing the ‘friends’ scheme. Bob Nichols and Dene Cordes met with the union representatives – Peter Neagle (F.M.W. Union) and Bob Giles (P.S.A.) – and formulated basic guidelines under which volunteer Friends groups could operate. The arrangement required NPWS, as a courtesy, to notify from both unions of any volunteer projects. To facilitate this, project advice forms (known by Friends groups as ‘Pink Forms’) were to be lodged by groups through their NPWS regional staff, notifying the unions of proposed projects and working bees. This process remains in place and has worked well over the years.
By 1982 Dene Cordes had been associated with National Parks for 14 years. He began with The National Parks Commission at Belair in March 1968 in a ‘do everything’ role that ranged from executive duties for the Board of Commissioners to doing the banking. He wryly recalls that he was the third person to hold the position in that year!
Various groups formed during 1982 and 1983, including Friends of Danggali. The Friends of Old Government House (at Belair National Park) was formed in March 1983, the first group to be brought together by Community Liaison Unit. Friends of Butcher’s Gap Conservation Park was formed the following year, September 1984, as an experiment to gauge the potential success of groups in rural areas. The Friends of Belair Recreation [now National] Park followed in September 1985.
In April 1985 Dene Cordes was awarded a Sir Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship to investigate volunteering in parks in Canada, U.S.A., Europe and U.K. Dene and his wife, Dianne, spent a rewarding time investigating volunteering during their tour to Europe and North America. On his return in August 1985 Dene set out with confidence to use the insight he had gained to start Friends of Parks groups wherever possible in South Australia. He started a Campground Hosts Scheme that year, and it has thrived; in 2007 the scheme had 70 hosts.
Dene’s overseas research convinced him that the North American style of volunteerism (known as Cooperating Associations) would not be possible in South Australia due to our small population, lower resources and large distances. Instead, he opted for a Friends of Parks that tapped into our strong rural links and local community pride. Many communities already regarded our parks as ‘their park’ and this sense of ownership has proved to be a valuable building block for the scheme. Dene has since said, ‘I feel that communities have come to regard national parks as their own – this didn’t use to be the case. They see their park as a local asset, not as a liability. The Friends groups and Consultative Committees have helped bring this about.’[i]
The ensuing five years were busy ones for Community Liaison Unit staff, Dene Cordes and Pam Smith (née Kohring). (Pam had joined the Unit in March 1987). In 1991 there were 60 Friends groups, 16 Consultative Committees, 30 Campground Hosts and 40 Overseas Volunteers. Membership of the Friends scheme had grown to 6000 and some 360 projects per year were being registered. The programme has continued to grow and there are currently 141 member groups (including affiliated member groups) within Friends of Parks Inc. (see Appendix A).
[i] Parks & Wildlife Autumn 2001 p.5
[i] Interview with David Wotton, Stirling February 2005