Alexandra Seddon

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‘One person can make a difference’ is a quote that has been attributed to many, including John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Albert Schweitzer.

And if this saying appropriately describes any one person from the NSW South Coast, then Alexandra Seddon surely must be that individual.

Alexandra is a wildlife carer who, over several decades, acquired a number of significant South Coast properties that she transformed into conservation areas and then handed back to the local community. Her motivation for purchasing these properties was entirely driven by her love of and regard for Australian fauna.

Alexandra’s links with the South Coast began in January 1975 when she, her brother Peter, and her then-husband Nicholas, a lawyer from Canberra, purchased a 110-hectare cattle farm near Candelo called Cowsnest.

It was intended to be a farm for Peter, a place where Alexandra could breed, raise and ultimately sell ‘quiet Jersey house cows’, and a retreat for Nicholas. However, inspired by Alexandra’s fascination with the Kibbutzim concept of labour being exchanged for lodgings, it rapidly became a communal farm that primarily attracted local unemployed people and those who were then on the margins of society, including punks, gays, reformed drug addicts, those who had been abused, and those recently released from prison.
Up to 30 people reside at Cowsnest at any time. Cowsnest’s invitation is simple: ‘come for a week, see how it goes’. And there are only four rules: ‘clean up after yourself, return tools and equipment, take responsibility for any tasks you take on, and keep communicating’.

A variety of artists and artisans were particularly attracted to the alternative, communal lifestyle at Cowsnest, and the Candelo Arts Society (‘founded by community, powered by community, part of the lifeblood of our community’) developed in 1986 largely out of the many creative arts that members of the Cowsnest community were practicing – music, dance, theatre, writing, the visual arts.

Caring for native wildlife became a major focus at the farm and, over time, a 23-hectare feral animal-proof wildlife sanctuary was established on the property as a halfway house for injured and orphaned animals prior to their release. It is used by around ten wildlife organisations.

Then, in 1997 Alexandra purchased six hectares of swampland on the lower side of Bullara Street, Pambula, to conserve its bird habitat. She named it the Waterbird Sanctuary and handed it to the Pambula Area Progress and Planning Association to manage. It was ultimately to become the first section of what is now the 77-hectare Panboola Wetlands.

In 2001, Alexandra purchased a further 42 hectares of adjoining river flats which, along with the Waterbird Sanctuary, was managed for the next few years by a newly-formed Pambula Wetlands and Heritage Program committee. Two years after that, she gifted both parcels of land to a re-constituted, community-based Pambula Wetlands and Heritage Project Inc. organisation. Combining Alexandra’s land with an adjoining vacant Crown Land Reserve which, up to 1997, had been the site of the Imlay Racing Club racecourse, then became a possibility…and a reality.

The Panboola Wetlands conservation area and sanctuary has developed into a very popular recreation area that now includes extensive walking and cycling tracks, viewing platforms, and picnic areas. 160 species of birds have been recorded in the area.

In 2001 Alexandra purchased more land – this time, nine hectares of flying-fox roosting and feeding area at Lochiel, west of Pambula. Here she set up the Batty Towers Flying-fox Sanctuary and Hospital to protect the flying-foxes of the region, and organised for the land become a declared conservation area.

In 2006, Alexandra became aware that an ailing 20-hectare Yellow Pinch Wildlife Park, 9-km north of Merimbula, was for sale. So, with money she had inherited from her mother and father, she purchased the property, renamed it Potoroo Palace (there were actually no Potoroos on the property when it was acquired by Alexandra; ‘palace’ was chosen as a symbol of the excellent conditions that would await their arrival), made it a home ‘that was as little like a zoo as possible’ to 200 animals and 40 species, and opened it to the public as a native animal sanctuary and conservation and education centre. It, more-recently, legally became the property of a tax-deductible charity.

All three of these properties have been gifted to the public, saving them from further development. Today, Cowsnest is self-supporting and tax-deductible donations from the community provide most of the income needed to maintain Potoroo Palace.