Mount Lofty World Heritage Bid
In November 2013 Alexandrina Council joined Adelaide Hills Council, Mount Barker District Council, Barossa Council, City of Onkaparinga, The University of Adelaide, Regional Development Barossa, and more recently the District Council of Yankalilla, to prepare a bid to list the Mount Lofty Ranges on the World Heritage List.
The elements of the bid that set it apart from other regions goes back to the origins of the colonisation era when theorist and entrepreneur Edward Gibbon Wakefield, free market economist John Stuart Mill and philosopher Jeremy Bentham all had a say in the founding of the state. The international significance of that colonisation history forms the basis of our UNESCO bid, as we show how the innovations of the era continue to be reflected in the contemporary landscape, settlement patterns and evolving rural land use policies of the Barossa, Adelaide Hills, McLaren Vale and Fleurieu Peninsula.
UNESCO World Heritage listing would celebrate our diverse and dynamic agricultural landscapes and allow them to evolve and develop under local and state planning controls.
If successful the region joins an elite global club that includes landscapes in Tuscany, Cinque Terre, Champagne and Burgandy. The bid has a core ambition to deliver real and lasting economic, cultural and environmental benefits to the region, regardless of the outcome.
Visit the Mount Lofty Ranges World Heritage Bid website for more information mountloftyranges.org