Conservationist’s legacy to become a Gold Coast regional park

EXCLUSIVE: AN environmental sanctuary, packed with rare plants and animals, is to be created on a pocket of land gifted to the National Trust by wildlife warrior Alex Griffiths.

Conservationist Alex Griffiths at the gates of Coolamon, part of the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.

AN environmental sanctuary, packed with rare plants and animals, is to be created on a pocket of land donated to the National Trust by wildlife warrior Alex Griffiths.

The State Government will today announce the 18-hectare block of bushland will be preserved and restored to a popular location for bushwalkers and families.

To be named the Coolamon regional park, the site has been badly neglected in the past decade.

It was given to the National Trust in 1976 by Mr Griffiths, founder of the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.

Funding shortages prevented the trust from maintaining the site and ownership shifted to the State Government in 2013.

Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary chief executive Jonathan Fisher said the land would be preserved for conservation purposes.

The late Alex Griffiths at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.

“The Government already owns the adjacent land and it is our understand Coolamon will become a regional park to be protected and conserved,” Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary chief executive Jonathan Fisher said.

Gecko president Lois Levy said Mr Griffiths, whose ashes were scattered on land next to Coolamon, would have been thrilled the property was to become a park.

“He spent many hours there and lived on a premises there for a while looking after it,” she said.

Mr Griffiths, a beekeeper and flower grower, died in 1998.

Friends of Currumbin president Barry Robinson said the site would be a well-used public space after some work.

“There is not much green space like this now and we are developing quickly,” he said.

“This will be a welcome sanctuary.

“I am absolutely in favour of it being used.”

Ms Levy said the group had already raised its hand to help rehabilitate the Coolamon site.

“There has been no management of the area for more than a decade,” she said.

“But it has enormous potential.

“There is lot of birdlife there and plant species.”