Reserves

Albany’s residents and visitors can enjoy a wide range of scenic, recreational and social experiences on reserves in the City, some of which form part of Australia’s only recognised international bio-diversity hotspot.  The City of Albany is responsible for the management of over 600 Crown reserves, occupying more than 138,000 hectares.  The Department of Environment and Conservation and the Department of Water, along with other government agencies manage a number of further reserves in the City of Albany municipality and the Great Southern. 

The reserve network managed by the City is categorised into two broad divisions: Natural Reserves (bushland) and Developed Reserves (parks and public open spaces).

The City manages approximately 500 natural reserves, varying in size from over 2,000 hectares to less than 1 hectare.  These natural reserves are significant assets for the City in terms of their ecological functions, as well as generating economic, health and wellbeing benefits for the local community and visitors.   

Unfortunately, natural reserves are subject to considerable human pressure from off-road vehicles (banned within all City reserves), day visitation, bushwalking, fishing, camping, sporting activities and tourism.  With human activity comes an increase in the threat of bushfire, littering, dieback, wilful damage to plants and unnecessary damage to vegetation through the creation of access tracks.  As a result of these influences, the City may be required from time to time to close sections of reserves to allow for rehabilitation of degraded areas, for safety reasons or to manage an incident within the reserve. 

A natural reserves asset management plan is being developed to ensure that the long-term management of these reserves, existing and newly created, is undertaken in a systematic way.

The City manages:

• Eighty (80) developed reserves (i.e. parks);
• One hundred and ten (110) garden sites;
• Two hundred and forty (240) lawn sites including thirty five ha of sporting fields;
• Three hundred and eighty (380) kms of roadside kerbing;
• One hundred and thirty (130) kms of pathways;
• Forty (40) playgrounds; and
• Thirty five (35) ha of irrigation. 

Within the urban areas, parks contain a range of recreational and social opportunities, depending upon the size and location of the park.  There are six classifications of urban parks within the City, each containing a range of recreational and social opportunities. 

A developed reserves asset management plan is being developed to help guide the City to improve and manage its urban parks into the future.  This plan will aid the City in assessing individual needs of a park for its locality and to produce a tailored, appropriate design. 

Some of the natural reserves have friends of groups helping to maintain various issues, contact the Natural Reserves Coordinator 0437 613 230.

To protect the facilities that the City provides to the public in way of reserves, everyone is encouraged to follow some simple guidelines:  

• respect other users of the reserve and behave appropriately
• dispose of your rubbish correctly or take it home with you
• use only road-registered vehicles on designated tracks and in a safe manner
• do not light any open fires; and 
• report any offending behaviour or damage (08) 9841 9349, fires (000) and injured wildlife (08) 9842 4500.   

The City encourages the community to enjoy the reserves on offer, but asks that people leave only footprints and good memories.