Roxby Downs is a town and locality in the Australian state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) 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 , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

about north of the state capital of

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

. The town has a highly transient population of around 4,000 people.Population by Age and Sex, South Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics)
/ref> Roxby Downs has many

leisure Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as eating and sleeping. Leisure ...

and

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

facilities including swimming, cinema, cultural precinct, community

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

, schools,

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE (), is the common name in English-speaking countries in Oceania for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational cours ...

, cafes and sporting clubs and facilities. There are just two neighbouring towns in the area: Andamooka, an

opal Opal is a hydrated amorphous form of silica (SiO2·''n''H2O); its water content may range from 3 to 21% by weight, but is usually between 6 and 10%. Due to its amorphous property, it is classified as a mineraloid, unlike crystalline forms ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

town about 30 km to the east, and Woomera, 84 km south of Roxby Downs. Andamooka people call the town home, and many are of European background since the days of early opal mining.

History

The town of Roxby Downs was built in 1986-88 within the traditional lands of the Kokatha. The land survey commenced in November 1986 with the aim of servicing the

Olympic Dam mine The Olympic Dam mine is a large poly-metallic underground mine located in South Australia, NNW of Adelaide. It is the fourth largest copper deposit and the largest known single deposit of uranium in the world. Copper is the largest contributor ...

and processing plant located north of the site of the town. Roxby Downs was officially opened on 5 November 1988. The opening was celebrated with a "town party" held on the main oval and sponsored by the then owners of the operation Olympic Dam Project (O.D.P.). The town is subject to a specific Indenture Act and is administered by the

Municipal Council of Roxby Downs The Roxby Council, formerly Roxby Downs Council and before that the Municipal Council of Roxby Downs, is the local government area covering the town of Roxby Downs and the Olympic Dam mine in South Australia. It has an area of 110 km². ...

in the form of an appointed Administrator.Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act 1982

Water supply

Water is extracted from the

Great Artesian Basin The Great Artesian Basin (GAB), located in Australia, is the largest and deepest artesian basin in the world, stretching over , with measured water temperatures ranging from . The basin provides the only source of fresh water through much of ...

and desalinated by the operators of the Olympic Dam mine. It is then supplied via pipeline. In 2004, the township was estimated to consume a daily average of 3 megalitres.

Governance

Roxby Downs is located within the federal

division of Grey The Division of Grey is an Australian electoral division in South Australia. The division was one of the seven established when the former Division of South Australia was redistributed on 2 October 1903 and is named for Sir George Grey, who wa ...

, the state electoral district of Giles and the state government region of the Far North, and with land within the town of Roxby Downs being located in the local government area of the

and the remainder of the locality of Roxby Downs being located in the

Pastoral Unincorporated Area A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...

of South Australia.

Environment

Roxby Downs is in an area, like many other arid zones in Australia, that was very badly

overgrazed Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature rese ...

by sheep and cattle during the nineteenth century, as

pastoralism Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as "livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The animal ...

was introduced by European settlers. This caused many long-lived species of trees and shrubs to give way to short-lived

annual plant An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seeds, within one growing season, and then dies. The length of growing seasons and period in which they take place vary according to geographical ...

s and weed species. It was estimated that there were once at least 27 species of

Australian mammals The mammals of Australia have a rich fossil history, as well as a variety of extant mammalian species, dominated by the marsupials, but also including monotremes and placentals. The marsupials evolved to fill specific ecological niches, and in many ...

in the region, but by 2016 over 60 percent had become either completely or locally extinct since European settlement. Introduced feral rabbits,

cats The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of t ...

and foxes exacerbated the threat to both

flora and fauna In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and fungi; ...

. Some bird species, including the

bush thick-knee The bush stone-curlew or bush thick-knee, also known as the Iben bird (''Burhinus grallarius'', obsolete name ''Burhinus magnirostris'') is a large, ground-dwelling bird endemic to Australia. Its favoured habitat is open plains and woodlands, whe ...

and

plains wanderer The plains-wanderer (''Pedionomus torquatus'') is a bird, the only representative of family Pedionomidae and genus ''Pedionomus''. It is endemic to Australia. The majority of the remaining population is found in the Riverina region of New Sou ...

, are now either locally extinct or classed as an

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...

, and many of the medium-sized desert mammals are now completely extinct or only exist on a few islands of Australia.

Arid Recovery

The Arid Recovery Reserve is a wildlife conservation reserve north of Roxby Downs, about north of Adelaide. , the fenced area of the reserve consists of of arid land. The initiative known as Arid Recovery was established in 1997 by Katherine Moseby and John Read, whose vision was the creation of a reserve dedicated to restoring the

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

, which meant keeping feral animals such as

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

s, cats and foxes out. WMC Resources, the South Australian

Department for Environment and Heritage The Department for Environment and Water (DEW) is a department of the Government of South Australia. Created on 1 July 2012 by the merger of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Department for Water as the Department o ...

, the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

and a community group formed a committee. The first reserve was created when fences were constructed around , and it has grown from there. The current (2020) board of directors consists of mainly independent directors, but also has representatives from

Bush Heritage Australia Bush Heritage Australia is a non-profit organisation with headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, that operates throughout Australia. It was previously known as the Australian Bush Heritage Fund, which is still its legal name. It's vision is: Heal ...

BHP BHP Group Limited (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is an Australian multinational mining, metals, natural gas petroleum public company that is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded ...

, Adelaide University, and the

Department for Environment and Water The Department for Environment and Water (DEW) is a department of the Government of South Australia. Created on 1 July 2012 by the merger of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Department for Water as the Department of ...

. Its three-pronged focus is on conservation, research and education. Roxby Downs in 2017

In October 2020, nine

bilbies ''Macrotis'' is a genus of desert-dwelling marsupial omnivores known as bilbies or rabbit-bandicoots; Unabridged they are members of the order Peramelemorphia. At the time of European colonisation of Australia, there were two species. The ...

– four males and five females – were released into the Arid Recovery Reserve, with the aim of increasing the

gene pool The gene pool is the set of all genes, or genetic information, in any population, usually of a particular species. Description A large gene pool indicates extensive genetic diversity, which is associated with robust populations that can surv ...

. The first bilbies had been brought in in 2000, with a second group ten years later, and this is the third release. These bilbies were caught on Thistle Island, which has a very large population of the

marsupial Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a po ...

s. Heavy rainfall in January 2022 led to the reserve's annual survey finding the second highest number of native animals in 25 years, with particularly high numbers of

reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...

s such as

skink Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae, a family in the infraorder Scincomorpha. With more than 1,500 described species across 100 different taxonomic genera, the family Scincidae is one of the most diverse families of lizards. Ski ...

s and

gecko Geckos are small, mostly carnivorous lizards that have a wide distribution, found on every continent except Antarctica. Belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, geckos are found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from . Geckos ar ...

Climate

Coober Pedy experiences a hot desert climate ( Köppen: ''BWh'', Trewartha: ''BWhl''), with very hot, dry summers; mild to hot, dry springs and autumns; and mild, dry winters. Extreme temperatures range from on the 25th of January 2011 to on the 12th of August 1966.

References

External links

Official website
{{authority control Mining towns in South Australia Far North (South Australia)