Adelaide is a special place - the only city on Earth built inside a park.
The Park Lands provide vital Open Green Public space, enhancing the liveability of our city and delivering significant ecological, cultural and recreational value for residents, workers and visitors alike.
But right now, the chainsaws are threatening their survival, with hundreds of trees already destroyed and many more on the chopping block.
Our shared heritage, environment and future are at risk. So is our right to have a say about our city.
It's time to join the thousands of South Australians standing up to say: not on our watch!
A two-and-a-half minute film on the ongoing threats to your world-unique Park Lands, and a consistent pattern of destruction.
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Here are four ways to share your passion for our Open Green Public spaces:
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When your Open Green Public spaces are threatened, we speak up — making submissions, raising the alarm, and campaigning to save them from the next loss.
This isn't a warning about what might happen. The damage is already under way — park by park, tree by tree.
It is not too late for the State Government to pause, reflect and change course. Our asks are simple.
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We track threats park by park. See the full, up-to-date watch list and how you can make a submission.
Sign, share, write, show up. Every voice makes the next loss harder.
The Adelaide Park Lands were a world first, and they remain the world's only. Totally unique.
In the 1830s, parks belonged to royalty and the nobility, to lords of the manor. Working people could enter only when invited. Adelaide's Park Lands were the first planned public park, open to all by right.
And long before Colonel Light's design, these lands were — and always will be — the Country of the Kaurna people, who have maintained a deep cultural heritage and custodianship of this landscape for tens of thousands of years.
Adelaide is the only city in the world built inside a Park. It's not a loop or a circle, it's a figure 8, wrapping around both the City and North Adelaide.
Arbitrarily divided into 30 Parks and 6 squares, each with its own name, yet every one is just a single piece of one continuous treasure: the garland of the entire Park Lands.
About 700 hectares, more than twice the size of Central Park in New York.
There's far too much to see in a single visit — take it one park at a time.
The more people who know what's hiding in plain sight, the harder it is to take away.
We're not just about protecting the Park Lands that remain. About 200 sites within the Park Lands have been lost to buildings and bitumen — and we pursue getting them back.
Dozens of places within the Park Lands have been taken over by buildings, fences and private car parking. It's time the public demanded some of these lost locations back — they are held on trust for the people of South Australia.
What "Open Green Public" means →Join a clean-up day or volunteer for the next re-greening push.
Volunteer with usThe Park Lands have moved painters, poets and photographers for nearly two centuries. Sharing what you love about them is a quiet act of protection.
Artists from Adelaide and around the world enter the biennial Adelaide Park Lands Art Prize. The 2025 exhibition featured 89 artworks at the Adelaide Festival Centre — and you can still wander it in a 3D virtual gallery.
Pick your medium — then share it with the tag #adelaideparklands so it reaches the world.
Post your Park Lands photo with #adelaideparklands and we'll share it with the world.
Follow @adel_park_landsWe offer a focal point for South Australians to explore, be inspired by, protect, and restore the Open Green Public spaces that are matched nowhere else in the world.
We are not a "ragtag group of extremists". We are a law-abiding cross-community movement of public servants, teachers, healthcare workers, grandparents, Kaurna leaders and everyday South Australians who live, work and play in this city. We are holding the Park Lands in trust for future generations and we will not stop until our Park Lands are protected.
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"Preserving and, where possible, restoring the Adelaide Park Lands as the pre-eminent green open space surrounding the City, freely accessible for open-air recreation and environmental benefit."
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Our Association was founded in 1987 as a non-profit, community-based 'watchdog', to guard Adelaide's greatest treasure: the world-unique, National Heritage-listed Adelaide Park Lands.
In 2021, members voted to change our name from the "Adelaide Park Lands Preservation Association" to the simpler "Adelaide Park Lands Association."
Read our Constitution (PDF) →Whether you have thirty seconds or a Saturday morning, there's a way to stand up for your Park Lands — starting right now.
Seven actions, from the thirty-second signature to sharing your story.
Anyone can read the newsletter for free. Membership is how you fund the watchdog. Every membership runs for 12 months.
More than a warm feeling — real standing in the fight.
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Pick whatever suits you — each keeps your membership active for a full 12 months.
We do not inherit the Park Lands from government. We hold them in trust for future generations. Add your voice.