COMMERCIAL USE OF UNDEVELOPED CAVES IN THE SOUTH EAST OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Naracoorte Caves Conservation Park - a Crown owned reserve of 310ha situated in the south-east corner of South Australia and managed by the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, contains 26 of the known caves in the region. The Park attracts around 45-50,000 visitors a year. Their activities focus on the visitor centre, which comprise the cave tour ticket sales area, a general orientation and information facility, a caves interpretation area, a laboratory and a kiosk.
Some 100 years ago, the first of three "show caves" within the park was developed for safe public access for aesthetic appreciation of the cave environment.
Such development has included the construction of protective doors to prevent random access to the "Show Caves" - enhancing natural features of the cave or creating special effects to add to the 'fantasy' aspect of guided cave tours.
In the early days of cave tour management at Naracoorte, care was taken to protect speleothems from visitor damage. The standard 'chook cage' was a special feature at Naracoorte for many years. The 'chook cage' served several purposes - it protected the cave from visitors, gave management something to do in the off-season, and of course provided a convenient structure to hang lights on.
As with most show caves, electrical lighting at Naracoorte has evolved over the years. The first developments included ceiling-hung cables and bulbs. More recent developments have provided some examples of spectacular over-lighting, tasteful lighting, subtle lighting and attempts at concealing light fittings.
Beside the attraction of three "Show Caves", several of the readily accessible undeveloped caves provide opportunities to view interesting chamber shapes which provide outstanding resources to interpret the genesis of these caves, and subsequent decoration by speleothems.
Unsupervised access has resulted in severe damage in many of the caves. Some attempts at repairing this damage have been made with reasonable results. However, further unsupervised access has negated these results very quickly.
With this protection now in place more serious clean-up programmes are being undertaken.
As valuable assets of the park, which now operates on an independent commercial basis, some of these undeveloped caves are used to conduct guided 'Adventure Tours'.
The level of 'control' exercised by the 'Adventure Tour Leader' varies from cave to cave. Some caves are more or less 'open' for participants to explore at will - the A.T.L. allows them to decide, within reason, the route taken. Other caves are partially open with free access to all but specified chambers where no access is permitted.
In other areas participants are regulated such that they step where and when they are told, pay handsomely for the privilege and, in the main, truly grasp the delicate nature of the cave environment and the need for stringent conservation management. Some caves have such specific values that commercial use is made of them without actually entering the cave. The Bat Cave at Naracoorte attracts some 30-40 visitors each night during summer to view their nightly feeding exodus.
Looking more broadly at karst features of the South East of South Australia, other assets include the sea caves, where opportunities to develop commercially based education programmes are being developed.
The Cenotes - a spectacular feature of the South East are also being managed on a commercial basis, with income derived from licensed recreational users being directed to the prevention of over-use and improper use, and provided for (at present) a free educational programme to interpret the significance of the Cenotes.
The key aspect of all this commercial use of undeveloped caves is that the free use of these areas for recreational purposes (which was destroying them) has been converted to self-funding educational use which provides for long term protection of their natural values at no cost to traditional funding sources.